Chaos Fragment
by Scarabbug
Summary: As the deadly phenomenon of the Wallscapes continues to drain the life from Station Square at an alarming rate, discoveries are made, new enemies appear, and the future of two worlds hangs in the balance. Sequel to Chaos Mythologies.
1. Prologue

To those of you who don't know me (which is probably most of you): hello! My name is Scarabbug. I'm a recent university graduate (at a time when the global economy is flat on its rear), and I like to amuse myself during my spare time by dabbling in conspiracy theories which cause small countries to temporarily implode.

But when such small countries aren't available, or are all overthrowing themselves quite well without my help, I usually turn to fanfiction. I've been working on this particular series for roughly a year now. It's turned out to be the biggest project I've ever undertaken on , as much to my own surprise as anyone else's.

For those of you who _are_ familiar with me – Oh, you're back. :) Hello! I'm glad to see you. Apparently I do have the ability to keep people reading after all.

Now then, the odds are hat, with the help of the occasional update, you'll be able to follow this story without having read the previous instalment, but you'll probably enjoy it a lot more if you've already read _Chaos Mythologies. _Much like the series you watched on television, the idea is that anyone can jump in here and enjoy themselves, and they don't have to have been there right from the very first episode. That's pretty much all I have to say, so... thank you for reading, and any reviews and/or constructive criticism you can provide would be very much appreciated.

* * *

Chaos Fragment.

Prologue. 

**The Plains surrounding the Kodian Mountain Range, Northern USA. **

Something strange was happening in the Mountains.

Well, stranger than was usual, anyway. The remote town of Kodian wasn't without its eccentricities. Famed for its picturesque landscapes, prize winning yaks, a convincing imitation of the Great Wall of China, and the local Rice-and-Cold-Corn Snacks (which had become increasingly popular since they found favour in the dietary habits of the super rare blue hedgehog). The entire place resembled nothing so much as a rocky, woody, hilly, sandy, chilly, mountain range that was pretending to be farmland. The canyons' inhabitants were resilient in supporting this illusion, and planted their yearly crops in soil that most developers would take one look at and sneer. The citizens of Kodian were _Artists_ of Improvisation. They created organic, fertile pastures out of nothing. They were experts and professors in subjects that most people didn't even know existed, or _knew_ of, but considered obsolete. They built paddy fields on _slopes_ and made them _work_. Never mind that the whole town was built on a fault line and they had as many small quakes in a year as Station Square had rainstorms. It was an ingenious set up, and so far as Topaz Stone knew, the Kodian Mountains were as close you could get to China without actually being anywhere _near_ a Giant Panda or a rickshaw.

It was close enough for her.

Or at least, it_ usually _was. Right now Topaz would've given her next three promotions to be somewhere far, far away from the Kodian Mountain Ranges. Or at least, far away from the "Big, Green Things" that were currently _covering_ the Ranges, terrifying locals, bewildering, cattle and cutting great swathes out of the landscape, and she wasn't sure that getting away from them was even possible – the green-grey curtains of energy looked as if they went on forever. The green walls of energy (or whatever they were, "energy" was the only word that could possibly come close to describing them) had appeared out of nowhere, and disappeared just as suddenly hours later. Yet the lights; like a multitude of sharp, green stars, had remained far overhead. The sky had stayed the colour of sour lime. And as for where the _previous_ walls had been...

Topaz knelt beside the white dirt, feeling it crackle like dry ashes beneath the soles of her boots. She tried not to kneel in the stuff, or make contact with it in any way. The ashes sent chills through her fingertips. Dead cinders which had never actually burned. This was all that was left of the ground touched by the Walls. Nothing but dead earth.

Not even the Kodian Farmers could ever make anything grow in _that_ soil again.

The Walls had appeared two nights earlier, falling from the sky like curtains. They had begun with points of green light, like stars, and steadily faded into dirty grey as they widened and approached the earth. It was impossible to tell just how big they really were. The Walls distorted your perception if you stared at them for too long. As if, Topaz mused, they _wanted_ to be looked at for just long enough for you to see how magnificent they were, but not long enough for you to see what secrets they might be hiding.

The walls had slammed into the ground with a force that would have sent any other city in the world into a state of panic. But the people of Kodian were familiar with geological incidents, and had merely headed calmly and quickly for the Emergency Shelters. The quakes, however, had soon been replaced with something far worse. The Walls were untouchable and impenetrable; anything (and any_one_) that had been beneath them when they hit the ground was trapped, frozen in a moment in time... and when the walls had risen again, there had been no sign of them. People, cattle, even entire buildings, had vanished, leaving behind only a thin, white powder.

Topaz and Tanaka had been staying at a little known resort in the mountains. They had seen the Walls arriving from on high and watched as they enveloped the landscape. They had joined the other visitors racing for the shelters, and remained there for several hours. They had emerged to watch the Walls recede back into the sky, and then they had left the Lodge and attempted to heads home to Station Square. Since there were no roads, and all other forms of transport had been thoroughly disrupted by the Walls, they had started _walking_ back into town.

That had been an entire day ago. They had been walking ever since. In her case, wearing very inappropriate shoes. Flat strapped sandals didn't take to rocky pathways.

'I _did_ suggest that you bring the proper footwear for this trip, my dear.' Tanaka pointed out politely as he helped Topaz out of _another_ crevasse she'd gotten her foot stuck in.

'Yeah, but I wasn't expecting the world to go all disco-tech on us overnight and wreck the only way to and from the lodge.' Topaz muttered. 'We always choose the _worst_ vacation times.'

'Do not be disheartened, Miss Topaz, you couldn't possibly have predicted an apocalypse when you booked our train.'

'I dunno... I could probably have looked for portents. Lights in the sky, or crowds of ravens or... whatever.' Topaz sighed, adjusting her baseball cap and wondering how it could be so _warm_ this high up in the hills; especially when the sky was effectively one giant sunscreen. 'You really think this is apocalyptic-level stuff, huh?'

'Professor Thorndyke would most likely say that the odds are in favour, yes.'

Topaz smiled wryly. 'Professor Thorndyke _also_ says that the odds are in favour of the _Station Square Diamonds_ winning the championship this season, and I think we both know how likely _that_ is.'

'True, but that is a delusion brought on by his deep sense of team spirit. _This_ is science.'

'Science?' Topaz shook her head. 'It looks more like _magic_ to me. I wonder if there is a difference where Chaos Control is concerned.' She picked under her fingernails, trying to make sure she got rid of every particle of white dust. She could still _feel_ it, clinging to her like radiation, or something else equally nasty. 'I just wish I knew what the damned things were. There were_ people _inside of those walls, Tanaka; I mean... what happened to them? Are they all just... gone_?_'

'As soon as we return to Station Square we shall speak with Professor Thorndyke and tell him what we have seen,' Tanaka said, in the composed, straight-forward tone with which he approached everything, from potential apocalypses, to dishwashing. This was no surprise, Topaz thought. Catastrophe or no catastrophe, you could always count on Tanaka to be as steadfast as a butler on ceremony. Probably because that was exactly what he _was_. 'I can think of no one more capable of dealing with this crisis.'

'Hm.' _Crisis_. That was a word for it, but not a word that Topaz would've chosen. 'You know, at GUN we have all kinds of handles for situations like this.'

'Handles? I'm afraid I don't understand what that means, Miss.'

'You know a _handle_ is... well it's like a nickname. They're not _official_ names, just... in-jokes that only we understand.' She cast around for an example. 'Like... _Holidays_, for example. We call those "Boots Off" time.'

'Ah. Hence the sandals.'

'Right. Hence the sandals. I'm honouring my workmates here, you know.'

Tanaka chuckled, which was good to hear. The man practically _lived_ on ceremony; to see him smile (or even just _relax_ for a moment) was rare, and to hear him laugh was a freaking _event_. And he was always so... formal. He still called her "Miss Topaz", even though they'd been dating for two years, insisted on opening doors for her wherever they went and offering his arm (she usually refused though he knew better by now than to take it personally, Topaz didn't like to lean on people if she could help it), and was always so anachronistically chivalrous about everything that he made even Professor Thorndyke seem immature. 'And then there's the equipment.' Topaz went on. 'Bullet Proof Vests are called "strait jackets", our warrant cards are our "Rights to Ransack", and half of our department insists on calling our Tanks "_Boom Boxes"_._'_

'How... professional.' Tanaka smiled.

'Isn't it, though?' Topaz sniggered in spite of everything._ '_Urgh, and you should _hear_ all names that Palmer comes out with. Seriously, Ed; he calls his pistol _Jennifer_, for Pete's sakes. The man needs to get a date.'

'And what would your workmates call our current situation?' Tanaka asked with mirth.

Topaz smiled. 'You mean with all of the matter-destroying walls and the earthquakes? Well lately, we've started calling incidents like this _Blue Alerts_.'

'Blue? You do not mean _Red_?'

'Nope. Blue. Because whenever stuff like this _used_ to happen, it almost always involved Sonic. _Knuckles_ means red. Sonic means blue.' And wherever Sonic was involved, Topaz thought, then so was Eggman. With Eggman came the Chaos Emeralds, and with Chaos Emeralds came disaster. Topaz had seen and felt the power of the seven Emeralds for herself. They weren't a _human_ creation and they didn't belong in this world. This was something Topaz hadn't realised this until the day the portals closed. When Sonic and his friends (not to mention enemies) had arrived in the human world, they brought the power of Chaos with them. Nobody had really noticed it (they'd been more preoccupied by the super fast, sentient, bright _blue_ hedgehog appearing in the news, than they had been with the subtle change in atmosphere that came with him) until Sonic _left_ again, and then all of a sudden, everyone in the world had been aware of Chaos's renewed absence. Like an old acquaintance that you didn't notice it until it was gone.

Right now, everything felt exactly the way it had on that day five years ago, when Chaos Control had come to earth and the creatures from the other world had come with it.

'So what do you think is causing this? It couldn't be Eggman, could it?'

'I don't think so,' Tanaka said, though he sounded less than certain. 'This is not Doctor Eggman's typical technique.'

'Why not? I mean, what're Eggman's usual tactics?'

Tanaka was quiet for a moment before answering: 'Often, he attempts to gain our attention by performing a variety of implausible feats, normally resulting in heavy property damage and a considerably panicked populace.'

'Right. And you have to admit, this has _certainly_ got out attention.'

'That is true, but by now Eggman would usually not only have announced his responsibility for the act, but would also have attempted to threaten us with committing further wrongdoings. Also, I have seen no evidence of machines, or robots; I have seen no signs of his usual attack pattern. No, Miss Topaz. I believe that this phenomenon was created by someone with far greater power than the Doctor. And whoever they are, they will undoubtedly strike again. I see no signs of their leaving.'

'I guess you're right...' Topaz sighed, because when you thought about it, Eggman wasn't like this. Sure he was mean and greedy and downright _evil_, but surely he wasn't this _sadistic_? She too had no doubt that the Walls were going to come back. Whoever and whatever was causing this, they weren't finished with this planet yet.

Topaz took a deep breath and let it out as slowly as she could. She reminded herself that was a member of _GUN_, one of the most elite security forces in the world. There was no way she was going to let a little Chaos Phenomenon like this get the better of her. 'It's really happening again, isn't it? Chaos Control is back...'

'It certainly seems that way.'

'Ed, do you think this means that the portals to the other world have reopened?'

'It is impossible to say. As Professor Thorndyke might at this juncture remind us; anything can happen with Chaos Control. We will only know for certain once we are back in Station Square.'

'Right, right... that means we keep walking,' Topaz sighed. 'And try not to think about the doom and destruction hanging over our heads, right?'

'Is that not our usual method?'

'Well, sure, but usually I'm wearing better shoes.' It was as Topaz was reaching down to adjust the straps of her highly inappropriate footwear that she heard it –a trembling, echoing sound that _could_ have been just a small avalanche in the mountains far behind them, but which she knew was probably something worse. Topaz jerked upright so quickly that she stumbled, and it took her several seconds to realise that this wasn't just due to clumsiness –the ground was shaking under her feet, making her teeth rattle in her jaw. And was it her imagination, or did the sky seem _darker_ than it had been just a moment ago? Topaz looked up, wrapping her hands around herself instinctively. It wasn't that the sky was darker, she realised, just that the green pricks of light were getting _brighter_, and making everything else seem murkier by comparison.

One of those sharp, green lights was positioned directly over their heads.

Before Topaz could think to ask, Edward had grabbed a hold of her arm and said urgently: '_Run_.'

Edward Tanaka had served the Thorndyke family for over eighteen years. This gave him roughly the same amount of experience with the bizarre and uncanny as any qualified Professor of the Paranormal. Sure, he was a little on the odd side, but he _was_ a former archaeologist butler who knew martial arts, Feng Shui, and how to pilot a _space craft_, for crying out loud. Edward Tanaka knew no limits or fear.

So when Edward Tanaka looked at you like _that_, and told you in no uncertain terms to run, then you ran. Even if your legs ached from twelve hour of walking; even when you were wearing thin sandals on craggy terrain, and even if the ground was shaking so badly that you could barely stay upright.

The green-grey lights seemed to be falling like sheets of ice all around them, covering the whole world at the same time. The air rang with a sharp whistling, like the pitch of an opera singer's voice just before they shattered the wine glass –only painful, like the edges of a torn can. Like a banshee's laugh might sound just before it killed you. And it _was_ a laugh, Topaz realised; a laugh that sounded _nothing_ like one from any normal perspective, but a laugh nonetheless. She felt it echoing through her bones, sounding almost as if it were coming out of a deep chasm.

She couldn't tell if Ed was still behind her, but the brightness of the green light was still falling over her heads. They fell through the air at what seemed an agonizingly slow pace, but was probably faster. Topaz was reminded of the dreams she had when she was stressed –dreams about needing to run after something, but feeling the weight of your own body pushing against you, holding you back. There was no one around for miles, and the sense of panic she felt was probably entirely her own, but it _felt_ like the panic of a million people. Like she could feel them fighting as hard as she was, but unable to go fast enough.

Topaz had seen people die before. Not often, but occasionally. She was a member of the Guardian Unit of Nations so those things were to be expected; she'd signed all the papers to that effect, and had known exactly what she was letting herself in for. Normally, in her line of work, it would be a quick death –a well placed bullet, or shrapnel puncturing the fuel tank on a car, or someone slamming against the bonnet of a moving truck. It wasn't something she liked to think about, but it was the way of her work. Topaz expected she might die one day as her workmates did: quickly and noisily, and that was how she wanted it to be. She didn't want the kind of life which dragged out second by second, with her breath being forced out of her lungs, struggling and desperate, and she certainly didn't want her _death_ to be that way.

And then she could _feel_ it, like a cold wind against the back of her neck, close and strong enough to burn.

The walls didn't even seem _solid_, and yet they made the ground shudder again as they hit. The winds picked up as she half ran, half stumbled over a nearby ridge, and jerked to a halt when Ed reached out to hold her back and stop her stumbling any further down the incline. There was one last final shudder which knocked the both of them off their feet and showered them with rock dust, then the sharp whistle faded away, the tremors stopped, and silence fell again.

For a few seconds, Topaz Stone forgot who she was.

For her, this was a strange occurrence. She'd heard that some people spent every day of their lives shifting from one position to the next. Topaz wasn't like that. She knew (or at least _believed_ that she knew) exactly who she was. Even when she woke up first thing on a morning, with the dreams about not running fast enough still in her head, she hadn't had to spend so much as a few seconds remembering who and where she was and what was real. Even when the other world had opened and the world she knew and changed immensely, she had simply... adapted. She never panicked, she never freaked out, and she could count the times she'd burst into tears in her life on the fingers of one hand. Thumb not included.

But... this was _different_, and she couldn't explain how or why.

After a few moments to catch their breath, Topaz clambered back over the ridge, wincing as one of her ankles twinged. (Wonderful. _Another_ sprain.) Then she and Ed both looked up and saw the wall.

It had stopped very close by, narrowly missing them by a matter of feet. She had never been this close to one, and looking into it, Topaz could see an emptiness within the murkiness. It was like looking into an opaque pane in of glass, in which the image was constantly shifting and moving –no, Topaz realised, there was nothing moving _inside_ of the wall, just on the surface. The inside was utterly devoid of life, movement, air, and even time. She could imagine how a human face might look, wide eyed and screaming as they stared out of their paralysed prison –suffocating because they couldn't move their lungs; crying because they couldn't blink.

Topaz had experienced a number of close brushes with death and she knew what they looked and felt like. But this close shave hadn't felt anything like a bullet missing you ear by an inch. This had felt... different. Like dreams and reality were mixing together and she couldn't remember whether she was awake of not. Like the only really real thing left was Ed's hand pressing against her shoulders and, if she reached out to touch it, the Wall. And yet you still couldn't make out _what_ you were looking at –not air, liquid, or solid; your eyes were always being pushed to one side or the other by the very essence of the wall itself.

She remembered the white powder left behind by the previous walls. It had been the remains of dead things, left behind in the wake of a monster without a mind. And she could've been one of them. It wouldn't have been understandable; it wouldn't have been painless, and it certainly wouldn't have been quick. And it would drag out second by second for what must've felt like eternity.

This wasn't death, Topaz thought, angrily; it didn't have the conclusiveness of death. This was life taken back to its slowest possible pace, while something in the sky above sucked it dry.

Topaz didn't know how she understood all of this, and yet she did. Apparently Ed must've known it too because he held onto her a little tighter and didn't utter a single word. Even though she had only meant to take a deep breath, she found herself stifling a sob, and for the first time, she clung to the arm that Tanaka offered as if it were a lifeline.

* * *


	2. One: Documentation

**Hm. Here we go again. This chapter has been a little while in the works. I just couldn't quite get it to flow correctly. But here I think I've managed something okay, considering the huge number of revelations I had to make in a short space. Standard disclaimers apply. **

* * *

Documentation. 

**Documentation of Mr. Miles "Tails" Prower. **

**Journal Entry Number #063**

**12:13 pm, January 16****th****, 20XX. **

_We have entered the fourth day of our current stay in (or should that be "return visit to"?) the human world. It's getting difficult for us to make notes on everything that has taken place over the last seventy-eight hours because... well, there's been a _lot_ happening and I'm not sure what's important to this journal and what isn't. However as scientists, Professor Thorndyke and I feel it is in the best interests of both our worlds to document events as they unfold. As such, we will both attempt to update these documents as often as possible, whenever new information becomes available. _

_Understand that we're already at a disadvantage. The situation is changing very quickly and our ability to keep up is becoming more and more strained. I can only tell you that the Earth is currently experiencing a bizarre geographical and physical phenomenon which presents a huge threat to life as we know it. The city of Station Square, as well as the surrounding desert, oceans, and beyond, is covered with strange energy funnels that appear to be draining the very essence of life from the environment. Even as we speak, these "__**Wallscapes**__", as Professor Thorndyke and I have named them, are having a near constant, detrimental effect upon the local environment. The Walls appear, drain the patch of earth they cover, disappear, and then appear again somewhere else not long afterwards. There seems to be some kind of a pattern to it but as of yet, we haven't worked out what that pattern is. Plant life, buildings, people, in fact _anything_ unlucky enough to be underneath the Walls when they fell, becomes trapped within them with no means of escape. One individual, who was found caught half within the wall, has lost the use of the imprisoned limbs. We're not clear whether this will be permanent, but compared to everyone who got stuck inside of the thing... he's kind of lucky. _

* * *

Miles Tails Prower wasn't much of a philosopher.

He figured he was too young for that kind of stuff. A genius with an IQ of 350 Tails may have been, but he was only _eight_. He liked solid questions with solid answers, such as: "How much fuel do I need to keep the _X-Tornado_ flying for exactly an hour?", and "when was the last time I got any sleep, and how much longer can I still go without it?" Tails had left the complicated Questions Without Any Real Answers stuff to Cosmo, when she'd been...

Well, he'd left it to Cosmo.

But if there was one kind of philosophical thing that Tails believed in, and had _always_ believed in, it was that no matter what you were dealing with, no matter what the current dilemma or your odds of getting out of it in one piece, a person _had_ to deal with that problem in the context of their own personality. In other words, a person _had_ to always be the person that they were. Like how Sonic had no choice but to be free and full of energy all the time and Amy had no choice but to be ardent and lovesick. Or how he always had to be _making _things: because that was the kind of person _he_ was. Tails liked to understand how things worked, and how to fix them when they broke. There was no sense in pretending to be anything else but who you really were.

Right now, at three o clock in the morning, on a world not really his own, this "fixing" of things was exactly what Tails was trying to do: he was trying to work out and repair a number of problems that they didn't even understand the cause of. Problems which he just couldn't put back together as easily as he could a Chaos Portal.

His friends were too anxious right now to appreciate his consistency. But then, Tails supposed that they had to be the people _they_ were right now, too. This meant that he was getting a lot of disbelieving questions from Amy, stern glares from Knuckles, and anxious, wide eyed stares from Cream. Add this to the fact that they were surrounded by no less than sixty snoring Chao, scattered over every available surface from the table, to the sofas, to the floor, to one which had perched itself on Grandpa's lap, and the whole situation added up to a pretty bizarre picture.

'Okay, just explain this to me one more time, Tails.' Amy muttered. 'This is supposed to be a...'

'A, um... a medical infeasibility.' Tails finished.

'Right, that. So why, exactly, are we sat here, at three o clock in the morning, talking about something happening which is meant to be _impossible_?'

She was sitting at the end of the sofa with her feet curled up underneath a too-large dressing gown, and a tried, fretful look on her face. She wasn't alone. Everyone else –including Sonic, which was more than just _unusual_: it was a downright _event_—was wearing the same expression. Except for two people, that was: Chris, who looked as if he'd bypassed surprise completely and gone straight to a total shut-down, for reasons that Tails could only suppose were related to shock; and Knuckles, who looked like he was about to go into one of his famous outbursts and was only holding back through sheer willpower. Tails gave him about seven minutes before meltdown, so he figured they had better explain all of this quickly and get out of Knuckles' way while they still had the chance.

There was no other way Knuckles could respond to what he was hearing, Tails thought: He would stay calm for as long as he could, _then_ he'd get angry at everyone and everything, then he'd pull himself together and start punching at things with all the strength and determination of Sonic, but without the sense of humour.

'Not _impossible_, Amy,' Grandpa muttered, talking with a rather strained composure. Tails felt grateful that he was directing their attention away from him. 'In_feas_ible. Just because something has never happened before doesn't mean that it _can't_. And this kind of phenomenon is... well, it's not unheard of. We _are_ standing in a room with at least _one_ person who's in tune with Chaos Control, after all.'

'But this has never happened to _humans_, right?' Sonic said. Another event: normally Sonic didn't have much to contribute in situations like this. (When you're the fastest hedgehog alive there isn't much sense in trying to come up with plans because nobody else can keep up with you.) 'And we're not talking about Chaos _Control_; we're talking about... about...' Sonic looked at Chris. 'Man, I don't even _know_ what we're talking about.'

'That makes two of us,' Amy muttered. 'Tails, are you guys _sure_ you've got this right? Maybe something funny happened to your equipment, because of everything that's going on? This could be a mistake.'

'No. I repeated the scan four times: the evidence is sound,' Helen said reluctantly, sounding higher pitched than usual. 'We thought... well, Chris and I agreed that you all had a right to know about it, before we go any further.' She glimpsed in Chris's direction. He didn't look back. His gaze was fixed on a display board that was perched on the sofa between Grandpa and Tails, being held up by a couple of sleepy looking Chao. It was an image of something that Grandpa Chuck had called a Cardiogram. A really, really weird looking Cardiogram –with a sharp, green smudge located where the human heart should have been. The green was trailing lines throughout what should have been arteries and capillaries, and even though Tails knew that it was just a clever photograph, the whole thing seemed as if it were shining and moving as they looked.

Chris's photograph, and Chris's heart, glowing the same bright, green colour as the Master Emerald.

No wonder he was looking so freaked out.

'It's not going to hurt him, is it?' Cream asked, squeezing a snoring Cheese in her arms. And that was Cream just being herself, too –Cream cared far more about people than she did about strange chaos phenomenon and Emeralds.

'We can't be sure I'm afraid, Cream,' Grandpa added. 'We'll have to run more tests. We're talking about something that's never been seen before and... Well it's an unusual thing to deal with.'

'_Unusual thing to deal with_?' Knuckles snapped. 'What, did you take a master class in understatement or something? Do _any_ of you have any idea what you're saying? You're suggesting that—!'

'—Chris has a lump of rock in his chest.' Sonic finished. 'And it's giving out a Chaos signature, right? You're getting energy waves from it just like you get from me. So I've got one question: why didn't we notice this before?'

'Well there _were_ a few signs, if that's what you mean,' Knuckles muttered coldly. 'He ran _into_ one of those Wallscapes, for one thing He actually got _inside_ of it and dragged someone else out! If that's not a manifestation of what's happening to him then I don't know what is.'

Helen nodded, though she looked extremely uncomfortable with the whole thing; which was no surprise, given that _she'd_ been the person Chris went into the Wallscape for. 'I'd say that this isn't just some random piece of Chaos infused energy we're seeing around Chris's Heart... It's an Emerald Fragment, Knuckles, isn't it?'

'...An emerald fragment.' Amy repeated disbelievingly.

'Yes.' Helen answered.

'...Around Chris's _heart_.'

'Well, no,' Grandpa coughed. 'Not just _around_ his heart. Actually we... think it's completely _enveloped_ his cardiac area. There are no signs of muscle movement, no heartbeat... and it should be one of the most active areas of the human body. The heart controls our entire circulatory system.'

'...We'd die without our heartbeats.' Cream whispered.

'Yes, I know that, dear,' Grandpa said with an expression that, to anyone else, would seem composed and calm, but which Tails could see right through. Grandpa was trying very hard not to look as disturbed as he felt. 'You said to me earlier, that your friends thought you didn't _have_ a heartbeat, Chris... After you were knocked unconscious in the laboratory. I think we've just worked out why. '

Chris nodded slightly. 'I know,' he said, almost whispering. 'The muscles don't work anymore. They can't operate around a piece of rock.'

'Okay this is all very interesting, but can I ask something?' Amy asked, with mock humour. 'Silly of me really, but, um... if Chris's heart has been replaced with a lump of rock and he doesn't have a heartbeat, then why the heck_ is he still sitting there and looking perfectly healthy?_'

Tails, Grandpa, and Helen exchanged a look.

'...We don't know.' Tails admitted. 'Maybe it's something to do with the Chaos energy the stone is giving off. It's like the Chaos is doing what Chris's heart muscles should be doing –keeping his blood flowing.'

There was a moment of silence while everyone allowed this to sink in. That moment became an entire minute, which most people spent looking back and forth between Chris and the cardiogram as if trying to work out which was less uncomfortable to look at. Tails and Grandpa waited. Chris gripped his chair tightly, his knuckles whitening.

Amy snapped frustratedly: 'Does anybody have an explanation for this which _doesn't_ sound completely insane?!'

* * *

_The exact nature of the Walls is unknown right now. They were created by fragments of the Master Emerald, which recently shattered and opened a Breach transporting us all back into the human world. These fragments of Emerald appear to have been _negatively charged_ by something, and are now drawing energy _from_ their surroundings, instead of giving it out. We're trying to analyse the walls composition, but their energy patterns don't show up on any of our computers. We've tried everything from Radar scans, to infra red, and while the walls _have_ been shown to emit a small, harmless amount of radiation when examined with a Geiger counter, they otherwise appear to be utterly resisting our attempts to show our computers that they _exist_. _

_The one thing we know for certain is that the Walls are composed of some kind of Chaos Energy. They _have_ to be, since they were created using the Master Emerald itself; or at least _using_ the Master Emerald as a channel. After the walls have vanished, the emerald pieces that were generating them move in the sky, recharge, and start the whole process over again somewhere else. Like bumblebees, moving from one flower to the next... except that most bumblebees don't destroy the flowers once they're done and leave behind nothing but a pile of white powder._

_And what exactly _is_ that powder anyway? Negative energy? Some kind of weird, _Anti-Chaos_? _

_So far we've only been able to stop one of the walls from completing its task, and that took such a huge amount of energy from both Sonic _and_ Shadow, that six of the Chaos Emeralds have been scattered throughout the human world, and the seventh has been... well. Damaged..._

* * *

'So um... when did this happen?' Sonic said, when it seemed like nobody else was going to ask the question. And it was a good question: just how long had Chris been walking around with whatever-that-was stuck where his heart should be?

'We don't have the exact answer to that either...' Tails mumbled. 'But we _think_ it started happening at around about the time—'

'—That Chris entered our world via artificial Chaos Control,' Knuckles said, and now Chris looked at him uneasily. It was the first time his expression had changed in twenty minutes. He looked rather... intimidated. Like a little kid in trouble. 'Any wonder people aren't supposed to _do_ that?'

'You mean this happened because Chris came into our world?' Cream asked, still looking terribly confused.

'Maybe. It's possible that Chris's portal malfunctioned because he used imperfect technology.' Grandpa muttered uncomfortably. 'Turns out that according to Doctor Eggman, the only reason he got to your world at _all_ was because the quantum alignment between the worlds at the time was sufficient enough to make up for the problems in _his_ portal system, and allow him to break through the barrier.'

Sonic frowned. 'The quantum _what_ now?'

'Quantum alignment, Sonic.' Tails said. 'It's... well, it's tricky to explain. See, our planet and earth exist on different plains of reality running parallel to each other. They run along two individual timelines, and _our_ timeline is characterised by occasional, worldwide fluxes in Chaos energy...'

'Like what happened when the seven emeralds came together for the first time?' Amy asked.

'Yes, except bigger. Only when those fluxes happen do our worlds' cycles become synchronous and inter-world travel possible. In other words...' he kept going, seeing as this obviously made no more sense to anyone than "quantum alignment" did. 'It's not possible to go back and forth between our world and this world whenever you like unless you can harness Chaos Control on your own, like Sonic. Only _sometimes_, during those fluxes, when the quantum signature of our worlds' is in alignment.'

'So in other words, it was only sheer luck that Chris was able to get to your world,' Helen explained. 'And because he didn't use genuine Chaos Energy, and isn't capable of Chaos Control, something must have... gone wrong during the transfer process. Something more than just a little age change as we originally thought. We're not sure what that error was or why this happened, but...' She paused again, looking at Chris who, finally, met her eyes and held her gaze.

'But for all we know, it's a time bomb waiting to go off?' He suggested.

'...Something like that, yes.'

* * *

_The fragments of Chaos Emerald has been placed in a sealed container and are being kept under observation. Grandpa and I hope that it'll show the capacity to repair itself, and that the damage isn't permanent. We believe that the damage was caused by Sonic and Shadow who, in order to defeat a monster created from the Wallscapes (I'll talk about that in a later entry), pushed the single Emerald beyond its limits. They drew upon their own life force in order to create an energy blast strong enough to disintegrate the monster, however that seemed like a lucky shot. I don't think they could do it again... :(_

_The whereabouts of the other six Emeralds is unknown: they were scattered when the monster released them and we'll have to gather them again ourselves (there blows an ill wind...). Trust me when I say that we had better find them as quickly as possible. Whatever created that monster, it was just barely defeated by pushing a single chaos. If there are stronger monsters out there, then without the other chaos emeralds, we don't have a hope of defeating them... _

_I've analysed a residues, which appears to be all that is left of whatever was underneath the last Wallscapes when they faded away. It's made of nothing significant. And I mean that literally. It looks like a thin, white powder, like talc or flour, but it doesn't have any energy signatures whatsoever: which is silly, because absolutely everything, no matter what it is or what it's made of, should have _some_ kind of signature. It doesn't have any aerobic bacteria or known chemical compounds that I can recognize in it, either. Just like the Walls that created it – our computers don't even believe this residue _exists_. _

_And just in case you didn't think we already had more than enough to worry about..._

* * *

This was the moment that Knuckles ran out of patience. Three minutes ahead of schedule, too. 'This is ridiculous! Do you honestly expect us to believe...'

'I don't need you to _believe_ it, Knuckles,' Grandpa said, dryly. 'You already _know_ it's true. You were probably aware of it before any of us were. You said you sensed a chaos signature around Chris, unlike any you'd ever sensed before – well this is where it's coming from.'

And of course, Tails realised, that had to be true. Knuckles knew Chaos Energy when he saw it. All his life he'd been raised as a Guardian, to protect the Master Emerald and the seven Chaos Emeralds from any harm that might befall them. Knuckles just _knew_ some things about Chaos, the same way that Tails knew his way around a Rocket Engine. The look on Knuckles face confirmed that he did, indeed, know exactly what they were talking about. He was just having a little difficulty accepting it.

'You're saying that this... _fragment_ is taking on the roll of a human heart? That it's transporting oxygen and... and whatever else it is that hearts do?' Amy looked about as convinced of this working as Tails felt. 'How does that even _work_?! I mean, Chaos-powered or not, It's just a lump of rock!'

'It's not that weird, actually. Not for chaos energy,' Grandpa said. 'Remember, Amy, studies have shown that the Chaos Emeralds are only solid by default. They're actually made of highly compressed, concentrated energy. Whenever Sonic or Shadow uses Chaos Control, the Emeralds revert to pure energy and are absorbed into their bodies. Chaos can take whatever form it wants to take.'

'Even a _human heart_?' Amy gawked.

'Why not?' Sonic shrugged. 'It can do just about everything else.'

'You mean that people with Chaos Control can _make_ it do anything else,' Knuckles put in. 'But the Master Emerald isn't in the habit of handing bits of itself out to people who decide to try and pass through it.'

'Even so, the fact that this doesn't fit in with anything we've ever seen before doesn't make it any less real. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can get on with treating it.'

'Treating it _how_?' Amy exclaimed, looking irritated. 'What are we supposed to _do_, remove it?'

Cream leapt to her feet on the couch, disturbing a number of sleeping Chao, including Cheese, as she did so. 'No, we can't take it out! If we do that then Chris won't have a heart!'

'We're not suggesting that, but we have to do something!' Knuckles hissed. 'If that's really a part of the Master Emerald, then it's one of only two pieces which hasn't been poisoned by... by that whatever that thing was in the sky yesterday. I hardly think he _or_ it, are going to be safe if he's walking around with it in his chest!'

'None of us are safe anyway, Knuckles,' Amy wrinkled her nose. 'In case you hadn't noticed, there's an _apocalypse_ going on.'

'Yeah and this could be the only part of that apocalypse we can control!' Knuckles shot back instantly; and the look on his face was a hauntingly familiar one, because Tails could remember seeing it while Knuckles was suggesting they remove the spy device implanted into Cosmo's brain...When he coldly and bluntly claimed that her sight and hearing were worth less than their safety. It wasn't cruelty, or selfishness. It was just Knuckles being Knuckles: determined to do what he felt they had to do. For the greater good...

Somehow, to Tails, that made it all the more frightening. He took a moment to look at Chris who seemed only barely aware of the argument taking place all around him.

'We have a fragment of the Master Emerald here,' Knuckles said. 'That much is true. Now the question is, what in the name of Chaos are we going to _do_ about it? Are we going to just... just leave it there and see what happens next?'

'What else can we do?' Grandpa asked, looking bewildered. 'Knuckles, you can't be suggesting we _remove_ it.'

'I'm not suggesting anything, but we should honestly think about it. It's not supposed to be there. Human beings—'

'—Human beings don't have Chaos Control, as you've told us like a _million_ times before!' Amy interrupted, flaring. 'Well it looks like that's changing, Knuckles, stop being so... so pig headed _and get with it_!'

'Hey!'

It was Sonic who interrupted the argument. But at first, Tails didn't realise it was him, because it didn't _sound_ like Sonic. He'd only heard that serious, blunt note in Sonic's voice twice in all his life. The first time had been when they left the human world. The second had been when he returned Cosmo's seed to Tails. Neither had been happy occasions. Cream was biting her tongue and shuffling over to Helen's side of the couch, and the Chao were stirring grumpily at being disturbed: at this rate, they were going to wake Ella...

'Look, Knuckles, I get that you've got this big hang up about being the Master Emerald's eternal protector, an' everything,' Sonic said, folding his arms and standing in front of Chris, the way he did whenever he thought someone needed protecting from something. That something, however, was very rarely Knuckles. 'But dude, _screw _the Master Emerald! Right now I don't care one bit about that thing. Well except for the fact that for all we know it's keeping Chris alive!'

'You think I don't care about that?' Knuckles yelled. 'His safety is as much at risk here as anything else. What if those monsters out there learn that there's a fragment of the device they're controlling on the loose inside of a human boy's body? Of course we shouldn't jeopardise his safety, but we have to face facts, something is going on here that we can't explain, and we need to find some way to understand what's happened and why!'

* * *

_We really don't have much idea right now what's going on right now or why... We're rushing to keep up with event as they unfold. Something has happened to Chris. We don't know when, why, or how it's connected to everything that's taking place now but... I'm sure there must be a connection somewhere. There must be. Maybe if we can find out just what's happening to him, then we'll be able to work out how to help him. _

_Anyway for the most part, he seems perfectly healthy (albeit a little shocked). He's shown very few signs of Chaos manifestations, or strange behaviour... Unless, that is, you count what happened in the city while Shadow and Sonic were fighting that Monster. Chris is positive he sensed what was going on in that battle, but we can't be sure just what that means. Knuckles probably knows a little more about it than we do, but even he's being driven half crazy by the lack of logic in all of this... Knuckles really doesn't like to be out of control where issues of Chaos are concerned. I don't blame him for being freaked out. We all are. I mean, a piece of the Master Emerald replacing a human heart? Whoever could've imagined something like _that_ happening? _

_...Did the Master Emerald mean for this to happen? Did it choose to do this to Chris for any reason in particular? Why _did_ this happen to cause this? _

_I wish I had some answers... But right now, all Grandpa, Helen and I can think of is to run as many tests as we can and try and work out what's happened to him. Not to mention what's happening to the whole world... It'll probably take a few weeks for us to complete the testing, and maybe then we'll have some answers... _

* * *

'—Weeks? We don't have weeks!' Knuckles snapped as he and Sonic faced each other in what looked like a scowling competition. 'There's a chaos phenomenon going on in the skies above our heads right which could come crashing down on us at any moment. The Chaos Emeralds are scattered to the four corners of this globe (for the damn umpteenth time, I might add!) And now you're telling me that one of only two remaining fragments of the Master Emerald is inside of _him_ and that finding out what's going on with him will take another few weeks!?'

'You can't change the speed of science, Knuckles,' Tails mumbled uneasily, feeling reluctant to get into another agreement. Knuckles in a bad mood was always... intimidating. 'We've got a lot to deal with here, we're going as fast as we can.'

'I know, but I can't even begin to imagine what could happen in the next few weeks, the Chaos signature Chris's body is giving out is getting stronger, it's only a matter of time before we start seeing something happening.'

'_Happening_?' Amy blinked. 'Like _what?' _

'How should_ I _know?' Knuckles grumbled. 'I've never seen anything like this before and according to you, I just can't "get with it"!'

'Um...Am I allowed a say in this?'

Silence fell for moment. Well, silent that was, except for the Chao, all mumbling and snuffling in their sleep. It sounded nice, actually, like a soft tide. Chris was standing up now, hands shoved into the pockets of the lab coat (which he was still wearing after two days), and he was staring straight at Knuckles, taking advantage of the mere foot of height he had over the echidna.

'Everyone is talking _about_ me,' Chris said, sharply. 'Trying to work out what happened to me and what we should do about it. But nobody is talking _to_ me.'

There was another very expectant pause. Grandpa was looking straight at his grandson with a face that Tails had never seen, but saying absolutely nothing. Chao snored; Knuckles fumed silently, Sonic tapped his foot repeatedly against the floor; Helen picked at the sofa covering, Cream sniffled, and Chris stood there stony faced, waiting for one of them to speak.

In the end it was Amy. 'He's right, guys,' she mumbled. 'I mean... it's his body. He should be the one who decides what happens to it, right?'

'...Chris, it's possible that those decisions are out of your hands anyway.' Knuckles said gently. 'Chaos is the most powerful force in the universe. And it's bonded with you in some way. Trust me when I say I know how serious that is. I won't pretend to understand the ways in which Chaos Works –and if_ I_ don't get it, then I doubt anybody else will– but I do know that it's _volatile_. We have no way of knowing what could happen to you now. What's _already_ happened...'

'Fine, then let's quit talking about it!' Chris snapped. 'Why don't we talk about something else? Like all those people who were lost inside the walls? What about Helen's _parents_? We know more about what's happened to _them_ than what's happening to me. Aren't they the most important thing right now? They're all _dead_ because of those Walls!'

And really, that was the last thing any of them wanted to hear –but something they really needed to. There had been a sort of... reluctance amongst them all, Tails figured, to say what they all knew was obvious –that over thirty thousand people has disappeared forever; destroyed by the monster that was creating these Wallscapes.

And Tails had never seen Chris this _angry_ before... Or for that matter, this scared.

* * *

_All we know for sure right now is that the Wallscapes keep coming –they won't stop. And every time they change, they take a little bit more of this world with them. The current number of people missing (and I think we can assume that none of them are coming back) stands at over thirty five thousand – and those are just the people we know about. It this is happening all over the country... all over the world... who knows how bad things might get. It's scary to even try and put numbers on this. _

_Something out there is draining the energy of earth, and using it to create all kinds of monsters. We can't be sure exactly what they want. _

_We're fighting against an enemy we can't see... one that creates monsters and sallies for itself out of scrap metal and garbage... It's like facing down a whole new breed of Metarex, except that. These guys make fighting Dark Oak look like trying to defeat Doctor Eggman in a chilli-dog all-you-can-eat contest. _

_Um... Sorry, I'm not very good with metaphors. _

* * *

There was a knock at the door.

Which was a little weird, given that it was three am in the morning and the Thorndyke house wasn't close enough to anyone else's house for even one of Sonic and Knuckles' yelling matches to have woken neighbours. Plus, with all that was going on, the neighbours were probably too freaked out to sleep anyway.

Grandpa hesitated for a moment, looking around as if to see whether anyone else was going to offer. When everyone remained steadfast in their seats he grumbled, stood up, and left the room to go answer it. The others remained in silence. For some reason, Tails realised, he didn't especially care who it was knocking on the door at this time of the night. Or morning.

'So... let me get all this straight,' Chris said slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor as he stood there. 'The world all around us is... pretty much ending as we speak. There's some awful monster who broke out of an intergalactic prison in between our worlds, and who we've only ever seen as a shadow in the sky... a shadow the size of _Station Square_. We've lost six of the Chaos Emeralds _again_, and we've gone and _broken_ the seventh one. The Master Emerald has shattered, taken off, and gone berserk. There happens to be a piece of it stuck inside of _me_ and nobody knows how... Those walls could come down again right now. They're _going_ to come down again. Who knows what's happened to my parents, or Helen's. We're probably the only people who can stop what's happening and we don't even know exactly what we're fighting against...'

Chris paused, seemingly for breath, reaching a hand up to his heart. 'Maybe... maybe all of these things are connected to this, but right now we don't know how and there's no way to find out anyway.'

'He's right.' Tails mumbled. 'So... there's no point in us all sitting here, yelling at each other and generally freaking out about it. I'm sorry, guys, but there's nothing we can do right now except... wait.'

And in the meantime, Amy said, softly. The Wallscapes come back and destroy even more of this planet.'

Nobody was comfortable with this. There was a great deal of shuffling and anxious mumbles. Chris sat down again heavily. 'Amy... I don't see that we have any other choice. We can try and help the people... but there's no way we can stop the Walls coming down.'

Tails thought that grandpa was taking a long time to answer the door (even considering than the Thorndyke household was huge, and it probably took him ten minutes just to get there), but no sooner had he thought this than the sound of muttering from the corridor alerted him, and everyone else, to their guests' arrival.

'Man, who's calling at this hour?' Amy grumbled irritably.

Sonic shrugged. 'Dunno, but I'm betting it ain't a pizza delivery.'

'Maybe it's one of the nice police officers, and they've found out something about your momma and papa, Helen,' Cream said, hopefully. Tails opened his mouth to comment, but by now the living room door was opening.

'Good news, kids, _someone's_ made it home.'

And there Tails saw perhaps the only happy sight that had greeted them for days. Standing in the doorway, looking as if they'd just walked down a mountain in very unsuitable footwear, were Mr Tanaka, and the GUN agent he recognized as Agent Topaz.

'Mr Tanaka!' Chris exclaimed, actually sounding pleased about something for the first time in a couple of days. Cream let out a happy-ish cry.

For one moment Topaz and Tanaka looked around the room in barely concealed astonishment. At which point Tails realised just how weird it looked. A bunch of off-worlder's sitting around an image of a cardiogram, surrounded by about five dozen snoring Chao.

Topaz sighed. 'What did I tell you, Ed? _Blue alert_.'

* * *

_I'm not good with names at all, really, but... I guess I'll have to come up with one for the guys we're fighting now. After all, we have to call them something besides "the big, malleable, regenerating monsters made of all forms of scrap and refuge, created by the shadow in the sky." That's a real mouthful to say every time. _

_I guess that they really _are_ like the Metarex in some ways –they take energy and chaos emeralds the way the Metarex did, and sometimes.. .well, sometimes they feel like the Metarex did, too. Except... worse. So maybe we can call them something like that. A new kind of Metarex... _

_...Neorex. _

_It fits, doesn't it? _

* * * *

_See the sections on __**Planet Earth**__, __**The Master Emerald**__, __**Chaos Control**__, and __**Unanticipated Chaos Phenomenon **__for more information._

_(Update Number 01, by M. Prower.)_

* * *


	3. Two: Arrivals

**Hm. Finally. Even in the midst of a Masters Degree rush I've managed to turn out another chapter. This is pretty much becoming my real world escape now, isn't it? Ah well, we all have to withdraw to somewhere every now and again, so it might as well be fanfiction... And now, finally, I get to bring some old favourite characters (and some not so favourite... oh alright, then, some downright irritating OC's) back into this story. **

**Standard disclaimers apply, of course, and reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

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* * *

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Arrivals. 

Alias Armstrong awoke from a bad dream about acid green skies overflowing with oil, people disintegrating into thin, white powder, screaming monsters, a yellow jewel shattering in her face, and a bizarre blue creature from another world, and discovered, to her disappointment, that it had not been a dream at all. Not entirely. It had been made up of a spattering of memories from the last forty-eight hours of her life, all jumbled together into one perplexing blur, and now she was...

Now Alisa didn't know _where_ she was. She lay (sat? Was she sitting down or standing up? It was difficult to tell) quite still for several minutes, feeling confused and anxious. There were sounds all around her, like drops of water echoing in a deep cavern, but she couldn't see anything at all. Not even her own hand in front of her face. She shivered uncomfortably as she became aware of how cold it was here.

'_Definitely_ not in Station Square...' Alisa whispered, and though she spoke quietly, the echo made it sound much louder. Her words ricocheted back to her like ping pong balls.

Alisa didn't like the dark.

She wasn't _afraid_ of it. That was quite a different feeling. She had been the middle child of a sleepy little family in a sleepy little town on the edge of a huge, ugly scrubland. There had been only one road in and out of "town" –not that you could really call it a "town", or a "road" at all– a single children's park (and only about fifteen children to play in it), a scattering of stores; an Agricultural Geographic Studies Department, and a small library with a single, forty five year old Lectogram computer. The town's "nightlife" consisted of nothing more than a few hunters going out to trap coyotes, and the old men who hung around in the local bar playing Dominos until one in the morning. Oh, and cows. There had been a lot of cows. Sol Alasmo was quite literally in the middle of deadsville. Like something out of one of those terrible movies from the early forties...

Alisa had found growing up there to be _excruciatingly_ boring. She had been a moody, precocious child, but she had never been an _imaginative_ one. She liked facts, figures, and real things, and she knew very well that she had never possessed the creativity necessary to entertain herself without external input. Personally, Alisa reckoned that the people who gushed about kids' imaginations were full of it. Not every child was able to entertain themselves indefinitely with a pack of crayons and some cardboard boxes. _She_ certainly hadn't been.

Alisa had read book after book on science and mathematics, and had decided when she was very young that a place like Sol Alasmo had nothing to offer her. Late at night, after the lights had gone out, she would stare out of her bedroom window into the virtual darkness of the sleeping town. Sometimes she would run out into the streets, and wander around hoping to come across something interesting, but she never did. When she left town to attend University a few years ago, she had been astounded by the brightness of the street lights and entertainment in Avenue City. It had made Sol Alamos seem even duller by comparison.

_This_ was why Alisa Armstrong did not like the dark –darkness reminded her of the boring, empty simplicity of Sol Alasmo after midnight. Darkness represented blindness and emptiness and just plain not knowing. Darkness was secrets.

So the darkness she was inside of right now didn't frighten Alisa. Not really. The primary feeling she was experiencing right now was annoyance, coupled with disgust. When she staggered to her feet, the ground crunched sickeningly beneath her, as if she were walking across a carpet of damp eggshells. And the _smell_ was unbearable. The place stunk of volcanic fumes, gases, and chemicals she didn't know the names of. She took a few steps forwards, and then a few more, finding the ground slightly uneven beneath her feet, but not dangerously so. She took another step, and came into contact with a craggy, slightly damp stone wall. Swallowing nervously, Alisa began to run her fingers along this wall, following the stone to a corner, then along another wall, and another. She circled the "room" several times, still virtually blind in the darkness. There were no recesses in the stone, no doors... no other apparent exits.

She was trapped.

Alisa squashed the sudden urge to panic rising in her chest. There was no sense in freaking out or screaming, and she'd never been that kind of person anyway. She took a deep breath, trying to remember everything she had been doing before she ended up here... She remembered walking the streets of Station Square, not long after that gigantic oil creature was destroyed by Sonic and... That other creature, Shadow, or whatever his name was... She had left without saying anything. She had needed to think, to be alone for a while... Then she had discovered something shining in a pile of trash: a golden jewel so bright that she could barely look at it. A feeling of warmth had spread throughout her entire body... Then there had been a blur of blackness, the scurrying of a thousand wings (or they had _felt_ like wings anyway)...

And then there had been darkness, as well as a deep... _sucking_ sensation, as if her entire body were being forced through a pinhole into a vacuum. There had been no pain or dizziness, and she didn't _feel_ as if she'd been knocked unconscious and dragged away somewhere. Nonetheless, she was here. Presumably as a prisoner.

Wonderful.

She circled the room a few more times to make sure. No doors. No windows. Alisa's eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness, but that didn't make much difference –there was nothing to see, except for the stone walls and the strangely glistening, sticky substance on the floor. Alisa shuffled uncomfortably, and the ground beneath her crunched.

_Yuck_.

If she had been kidnapped then she didn't know how or to what end. She was just a random, newly qualified Doctor from a little known town in the middle of nowhere. And one who had hardly any idea what was going on here or what she was supposed to do about it. Alisa wiped her hands against her skirt, grimacing at the stickiness the walls had left on her fingers; like oily caramel. Somehow, Alisa doubted that was an appropriate substance to describe the stuff.

What kind of a place was this?

Well. Wherever she was, she refused to be afraid. Alisa had never allowed herself to be defeated by her own insecurities and she wasn't about to start now.

The silence went on for what seemed like hours. Long enough for her to start entertaining some rather worrying thoughts. Thoughts about what had happened to all of the people who had been trapped beneath those awful green walls out there, and about these strange creatures overrunning their planet. Thoughts about what else could've come through Thorndyke's portal to the other world...

This was looking less and less like just some unfeeling, unthinking violent force attacking their planet, Alisa thought, and looking more and more like somebody or something very dangerous had plans for them that were seriously detrimental to human health.

And then her thoughts were interrupted by an echoing.

It was the sound of something moving towards her, though whatever it was it didn't have _feet_. She was only barely aware of its advancement. Like something out of another bad dream steadily approaching from a distance. Alias barely considered that perhaps this was _still_ a dream - but if it was then it was doing a deadly impersonation of reality.

Then there was another sound –one like the screeching of heavy machinery. A door opened.

Alisa jumped. There had certainly been no door there before. In fact it seemed as if the wall literally unzipped itself from the ground upwards, solid _stone_ melting and bending away. White light spilled into the room, blinding her for several seconds. When Alisa looked again, there was a figure standing there.

At first, she thought it was a human, though it was difficult to see clearly in the sudden glare of lights. It _had_ to be a human being, because it couldn't possibly be anything else. But then, human beings couldn't usually _unzip_ walls or turn stone malleable. And after looking closer, she realised it _couldn't_ be human at all. The proportions were slightly out, as if the figure had been drawn by an incompetent artist. Not that she was a very good judge of _art_... and then there were its feet... or rather the absence of them. The creature seemed to walk on liquid air; like a ghost...

'_Your name is Alisa, correct?' _

The figure spoke to her in a "voice" that was not really a voice at all. It felt as if the words were appearing directly inside of her head, and that they were made up of the voices of every man she had ever known, from her father, to her most hated professor, to Charles Thorndyke, to that ridiculous blue hedgehog... Alisa shivered slightly as the "words" ran up and down her spine like shivers.

She was _not_ afraid. She was _not_...

'What's it to you?'

'_It is many things to me. You would not be of much use to us if you are not who we believe you to be. You are the Alisa Armstrong we seek, are you not? The one who was born in the place humans call "Sol Alasmo.' _

Alisa hesitated, still trying to clear away the messy stickiness on her hands. For the first time since she arrived in this place, she became aware of the blood rushing in her ears and pounding in her chest.

'First of all I don't see why where I come from is all that important. And... and second, even if I did, I don't much care for sharing information with people who kidnap me and lock me in a horrible, stinking _cave_ somewhere in the middle of nowhere!'

'_You are... uncomfortable?'_ The creature sounded oddly intrigued.

'Damn right I'm uncomfortable!' Alisa snapped; she had discovered that getting angry kept her from feeling so frightened. 'What _else_ would you expect me to be, when you pick me up and dump me in a place like _this_?'

'_I fail to understand... I find this location quite suitable.'_ The figure turned its head slightly to the left. _'Caulk, what is she talking about?'_

At first, Alisa wondered who he was talking to, and then two sharp yellow eyes opened above the figure's shoulders, shocking her backwards. They were not one figure, but two. And now something black and feathery, about the size of a large dog, leapt away from where it had been clinging to the figure's back.

Now Alisa _did_ scream, if only for a second, as a mess of grimy, threadlike feathers smacked her in the face – some of which seemed to be as sharp as shards of glass. She felt them cutting into her and clutched her cheek in pain. The creature landed on the grimy ground before her, claws scratching at the stone ground, beak clacking. It was laughing at her, she realised; it was entertained by her fear and shock.

_It's a bird_, Alisa realised. _It's one of those creatures from the other world... like Sonic only... only different. It looks more like a creature from our world than Sonic does. He doesn't really look very much like a hedgehog but this creature... it's _definitely_ meant to be some kind of bird. _

'Human thing, human thing!' the bird screeched in a voice barely human. 'Ha! Be surprised, human thing; be surprised by the great greatness that is Caulk!'

Alisa grimaced pulling away as the creature reached out its hands (wings?) towards her. Bits of its body, she realised, were shining in a most unnatural way. As if bits of metal were strapped onto its feathery skeleton. 'Get away from me!'

The birds huge yellow eyes blinked in bewilderment, then glistened again with laughter. 'Human does not like?! Human should be impressed! Is Caulk's new body not impressive? Master made it for me, did you not, master?'

'You... _you_ are about as impressive as a sewer rat!' Alisa snapped. 'Now you _heard_ me, get away!'

'_Caulk, do be careful, or you'll damage her_,' the figure said calmly. '_I don't believe that humans can regenerate their bodies quite as easily as_ _I_.'

The bird sniggered, leering at Alisa and sniffing the air. 'Caulk is sorry, Master. Caulk gets excited, is all. Is nice to be hearing things make loud noises again. Is nice to be hearing _anything_ again.'

'_Yes, I agree with you, but stick to the point, Caulk_,' the figure said, sounding slightly exasperated. '_What is she talking about? She seems... unhappy with her surroundings. Is she in pain?_'

'Ah!' the bird scratched its nose with a wing tip 'No, no. Not pain. Remember that thing, before, with flame of candle, Master? Flame which turned your flesh black? _That_ was pain. This is not pain she is feeling now. This is fear.'

'_Ah. It is not hate_?'

'No, no master. Not much of it, anyway. We know hate very, very well, does us not?'

'_Yes... Yes, I daresay we do_,' the figure said thoughtfully. And then it reached out and grabbed hold of Alisa's wrist. Its hand felt heavy and thick, as if it were made of nothing except for bones that were much, much too big to be from a normal human hand. She tried to pull away, but it held onto her so tightly that she couldn't even tremble. Alisa screwed up her face in disgust.

'_I_ _think you're right, Caulk. It is not hate this woman is feeling... I know of hate, and it is nothing like this_.' The creature seemed satisfied. It let go of Alisa's wrist and she immediately stepped backwards. She considered making a break for it, but the part of her brain which was still thinking with something other than its deepest, animal instincts told her to shut up and stay still. '_Then I apologise for your treatment, Alisa Armstrong. I'm... rather new at this_.'

The bird stepped to the size and began half walking, half fluttering around Alisa in a circle.

'I-I don't know what you think you are, or what you think you're talking about, and I don't care,' Alisa said, summoning all her courage, and turning away from the curious, pecking creature. 'But I have to tell you that humans don't like it when you kidnap people. The police will look for me! They...' she trailed off, suddenly realising how ridiculous this sounded. She didn't even know where she was, and even if she did, she had the feeling that no number of police officers would prove a match for this creature.

'_I do not think that is so, Alisa. After all, many human beings have gone missing from your world quite recently. You will merely be counted as another one of them. I do not thing your absence will even be noticed._'

Realisation dawned on Alisa as a sharp, cold sensation in her stomach. '...It's you, isn't it? You're the one who's making all of those energy walls! You're the one sucking the city of Station Square dry!'

'_Station Square_?' the creature seems confused again, then it's cold, bizarre face softened. '_Yes. I suppose I am the one doing that. To Station Square and to many other places all around this planet. Your world is extremely rich in energy and content. There is much for my Walls to ingest_.'

'Why?' Alisa snapped, feeling her twisting fear once again being replaced by anger. 'What do you want?'

'_It is necessary_,' the figure's strange voice says. It speaks calmly and without any signs of guilt, or needing to excuse itself. It is merely stating a fact.

'Necessary?' Alisa gasped, disbelievingly. 'What could _possibly_ be so important that you're making so many people suffer?' She scowled, grinding her teeth as her logically tuned brain started piecing together evidence, working out exactly what was going on here and why. 'What... what about the other world? Are _you_ responsible for what's happening with the portals, and the Chaos Emeralds? Did you send the monsters that are attacking us?!'

'_Yes_.' The figure said. '_And you must be calm. There is no need to be afraid of us. We will not hurt you. You are going to be very useful to us, Miss Alisa Armstrong of Sol Alasmo.'_

Alisa swallowed, now no longer even bothering to pretend to herself that she was not afraid. 'No... No I'm not. I won't help a thing like you. Not when you're destroying my world.'

'_In time we shall explain everything to you, and then you shall understand out needs, and understand what it is that we want, from you and from this world_.' The creature pauses, as if uncertain. '_I rather hoped...that we might become friends_.'

'F-friends?' Alisa didn't know whether to laugh, cry, scream, or try and attack the damn thing; none of which she thought would do her any good.

The creature took a step towards her, and for the first time Alisa got a good look at its face. Well, whatever that mess of features it was trying to pass off as a face was, anyway. And its eyes... nothing but empty, hollow pits, filled with oil and grime... Like a skeletons eyes except deeper. Looking into them was like looking into oblivion...

Alisa Armstrong bit her tongue to keep herself from screaming.

* * *

The citizens of Station Square were not having a particularly good day.

In fact, they hadn't been having a particularly good _week_. Not after the arrival of the Wallscapes. These huge walls of energy were created by fragments of the Master Emerald. Presumably this great source of chaos energy had been "infected" by some kind of malevolent outside force, causing the fragments to _drain_ energy from the world, rather than giving it _out_. Bit by bit the city was disintegrating into nothing more than a thin, white powder. To the city's inhabitants, it seemed as if this tragedy was taking place in their city alone, but in fact, the Walls were spread out much further. There were Wallscapes appearing all around the planet, each one created by a fragment of the once benevolent Master Emerald, each one draining their world dry, disappearing, and moving on to begin draining again somewhere else.

Worse still, when the Walls fell, the phone and internet connections fell with them, severing all communication between other towns and cities. And with everyone being run ragged trying to stay ahead of each new wall, and trying to stay alive in the face of a disaster than wanted to destroy them all, it was no wonder that people were a little preoccupied at that moment in time.

So it was also no surprise that nobody really noticed when a smallish, spherical airship appeared in the air over the Ocean surrounding Station Square, and hovered there, much in the same way as a hot air balloon. Except that this ship was made of metal, and one side bore a rather large, girning image of the face of Doctor Eggman.

And as the Doctor himself sat in the control chair of the Egg Carrier, taking in the bizarre sight before them, of a planet in chaos, covered in funnels of bright green and grey light, and cast beneath a poisonous green sky, he had to admit that he was rather impressed by the whole thing. Whoever was doing this certainly knew how to start a good panicked riot.

So... here they were back on the planet of his birth once again. But it was certainly not the Earth that Doctor Eggman remembered it being.

'all\systems are checking out okay, Doctor,' a tinny voice piped from the chair in front of him. 'we seem to have come through the Breach with relatively little trouble.

'So here we are again,' a small voice squeaked at Eggman's shoulder. Bokkun's beady yellow eyes started at the view screen, a cheesy grin across his small face. 'Last stop for the Egg Carrier Expression! Station Square, Planet Earth"!'

'Bokkun, shut up.' Eggman grunted. 'Nobody wants your commentary.'

Bokkun squeaked indignantly before disappearing back into the bowels of the ship, muttering irritably about the shooting messengers or some nonsense. Before the Doctor, Becoe leaned back in his chair, tutting mechanically to himself in what he probably thought was an intelligent sounding way. 'Oh yes, now this is most _definitely_ a thermodynamic reaction concentrated on a small location and influenced by a flux of power on a quantum level, Decoe.'

'Becoe, we still do not have any idea what that even means.'

'But that's definitely what it is, don't you think so, Doctor?'

Eggman grunted. Which was more of an explanation than he usually offered them. Becoe clearly saw that as an excuse to keep talking. 'I wonder where Sonic is… he must've come through that breach along with us, right?'

'Probably,' Decoe shrugged: or as close to a shrug as a metal being could imitate, anyway.

'Pipe down you two imbeciles can't you see we've been affected b the time distortion? Doctor Eggman grunted impatiently. 'Even if we went into the portal at the same time as Sonic and those meddling friends of his, that doesn't mean we've arrived _here_ at the same time they did... we could have gotten here hours, days, or even weeks afterwards. Alternatively, _they_ might not be here yet. Who knows with timelines?'

'Goodness, these time distortions really make my servos spin, Doctor.'

'Me too, Decoe. They're so confusing...'

'Whatever it is, it's big,' `Eggman muttered, tracing the pattern of the various huge manifestations of energy that were covering Station square like giant green spotlights. But not spotlights, Eggman thought. The energy coming off of those things (or rather, travelling up inside of them, like liquid being sucked up a straw) made the Egg Carriers energy output look like a microwave over. Something was sucking Station square dry, and if he was reading his signatures correctly ten that "something" was the Master Emerald itself.. Whoever, and whatever, was doing this, they were capable of manipulating Chaos on an even more fundamental level than Sonic. ~They were powerful.

Metarex level powerful.

Ha. Bet that gullible Echidna is losing his quills over this…

'So… do ya think Cr— I mean Sonic is here or not?' Bokkun asked, popping up from nowhere again as he was prone to doing. Funny how he could always do that when he wasn't wanted (which was most of the time) Eggman thought, but when her actually needed the creature he was off somewhere pining for that silly rabbit of his…

And Bokkun thought he didn't know about that. Ha. How did he think Eggman had gotten the title of "genius" in the first place? And anyhow it wasn't like it even took a man of his intellect to figure it out. Frankly, he'd let Rouge carry on that whole blackmail thing last year because it amused him. There was so little to do in the depths of space, so little to challenge his superior intellect…

Good help was so hard to find out there. And even harder to find out _here_/ to be honest, Eggman had never thought too much of earth. It was far too complicated for his liking, whether it was the world of his birth or not. He didn't particularly care which world he dominated, of course, but he had learned the hard way that it really wasn't a good diea to muscle in on things bigger than you when they were already plotting their own takeovers. And now somehow fate, the fickle being that it was, had brought them back again.

'Oh he's here alright,' Eggman muttered. 'Sonic never could stay away from his adoring public for long... Becoe, are you running a local area scan down there or just sitting there gawking?'

One world or another. It didn't matter much to him. He'd work out what was happening here, and then... well, talking that power for himself might yet be an option. Sonic was sure to be here as soon as he realized Egg,man was there. That was if Sonic had actually arrived yet... damn time warps. Eggman leaned back and gazed down at the planet beneath his view screen, unnoticed by all the world, and waited...


	4. Three: Appearances

**I have come to the conclusion that my character writing of the previous chapters sucks. I mean, writing character journal entries is difficult, especially when you've got certain information you need to get across, but the previous chapter didn't even **_**sound**_** like Tails. The reason for this, I think, is because Tails may be a super genius but he's still an eight year old child and quite regularly I bypass the eight year old child and get straight into using him as a character voice for the intellectual stuff (whenever Chuck isn't available, anyway). I have a similar problem with all the characters – picking up one personality trait and ramming it down the reader's throat at the expense of all the others. **

**Plus that chapter was kinda boringly executed. **

**So in the end, I decided that the best way to get around this problem is to just revel in the corniness of **_**Sonic X**_** dub dialogue and go with whatever I think sounds right for that particular character. So, that gives me something else to work on in the upcoming chapters. Now that I'm done making excuses for myself, thanks for hearing me out and waiting this long for a new chapter. Please point out anything you think sucks (preferably with explanations as to why it sucks otherwise I have nothing to go on). Standard disclaimers apply. **

* * *

Appearances. 

Station Square News Crew was, of course, expected to issue a press statement on their current situation. Of course, this being the kind of city where blue hedgehogs fell from the sky, machines could have minds of their own, and which evil geniuses regularly tried to use as a stepping stone to global conquest, such a bizzare news report would normally have been a piece of cake.

The problem being that they had to issue it in _print_ form; with ink on paper and everything, which, for Scarlet Garcia, was a novelty in itself. It'd been a couple of years since SSN had even done anything other than recorded and live news broadcasts. Newspapers, to them, were a thing of the past, but with the communications satellites losing power every time the Walls came down, paper was the only option if they wanted to contact a lot of people in a relatively short space of time.

Which meant that someone had to write them. Namely her.

And Scarlet _hated_ writing.

'Sam, just give me the eye witness report and let me get on with this, I don't like it anymore than you do, but somebody has to get information out to the masses, and without digital television...'

'Without digital television, poor old Miss Modernity is reduced to medieval method?' Sam Speed grinned, wiping some dirt off the surface of a car which was covered in scratches that would take a whole can of turtle wax to get out. 'I bet your secretaries are digging out their typewriters too. And making your coffee by _hand_...'

'Uh-_huh_. I know you're not familiar with the workings of the office world, Mister Flair, but our coffee machine is _not_ controlled by the same people who control the worldwide satellite network,' Scarlet said. '_Though it probably _should_ be, what with the amount of the stuff we go through_.'

'Aw c'mon, Red, enough with the _Flair_ stuff already. I told you, it's Speed. S.P.E.E.D'

'And I told you that it's _Scarlet_. S.C.A.R.L.E.T.'

'Sorry, Re— Scarlet, _Scarlet_,' he corrected. 'This is just how I deal with things, is all. I mean if you can't laugh...'

Scarlet sighed. Of course, Sam knew she was only correcting him because she needed _something_ to get annoyed at besides the end of the world as they knew it. The city was falling apart, and what did they have her doing? Walking the streets with a notepad and a hand held recorder trying to get _witness reports_. 'I know. I'm sorry about what happened to your team mates. And we haven't had any word on your sist— about Lindsey Thorndyke yet, have we?'

Sam shrugged. 'Knowing my sister she's off somewhere complaining to whichever authorities she can get hold of because she can't patch a call home. As for the guys... Well. I'd like to say they're in a better place, but I'm having a little trouble buying into the claims of Hallmark sympathy cards right about now.'

Scarlet couldn't blame him.

'It's not only about her,' Sam said. 'There's my brother in law, too... and my nephew.' Sam cursed under his breath. '_Damn_, he was only just getting to know them both. What're we gonna do if his parents never come home?

'How old is your nephew, again?'

'Meh. Nineteen, thirteen, it depends... As you well know.'

Scarlet smiled. She'd done the report on that particularly age-jumping-portal newsflash. Or she'd tried to, anyway. It had been made difficult by the majority of the Speed Team using their vehicles to block the News Van's entrance to the Research Facility. So that his family could get out of there without a media circus on their tails. Actually that was how she and Sam had met. Outside of a work environment. Seriously, he could've just _asked_. 'Right. _And_ he was born in Station Square to boot. I think he can cope with whatever this throws at him.'

'I know, I know, Red, but call it a family thing if you... Ah. Sorry.' He winced.

'Don't mention it.' Scarlet sat down next to him on the bonnet of the car. 'And I guess it's okay if you call me that. It's just that you're the only one who calls me Red. Except for that Shadow guy, anyway.'

'Force of habit. Scarlet, Red, what's the difference anyway?'

'Oh about two rows on a painting colour palette.' Scarlet smiled vaguely. 'Which reminds me, do you prefer pink or—'

'...You've got to be kidding me.'

'What? I'm just talking about the title bar we're putting on the recording. We still have basic movie making software in the studio, but you only have a choice between pink, red, and gree... Sam?'

'Look up, Red,' Sam muttered, pointing at something above and behind her. 'Or don't, if you would rather not have your day made even worse than it already is. We've got company.'

Scarlet, figuring that her day couldn't _possibly_ get any worse anyway turned and looked. She had figured wrong. The sky overhead shone with a light that made her dizzy just looking at it, but she could just make out the shape a flying machine silhouetted against the glare of one the Wallscapes.

A distinctively _egg shaped_ flying machine.

* * *

The room Alisa was now standing in was larger than the one from before, and a great deal lighter.

Not that this made up for anything, and they were still underground, but she figured it was at least an improvement on the cold and damp. She watched, not sure whether to be engrossed or disgusted as the stone twisted to the movement of her captive's "hand", reshaping from hard stone to material and creating light out of the dust particles floating near the "ceiling"...

'_Is that an improvement?'_ The figure asked. If Alisa hadn't known better she'd thought he genuinely wanted her to be happy. Maybe he did. Who knew what was going on inside of his head?

She touched the surface of the furniture. It felt natural enough. Not like stone at all. But there was no structure beneath it. It was like a chair made by someone who knew only that chairs were "soft" and didn't know that they usually had support structures built into them. She still sat down. It worked well enough.

'You can do all of this, just by wishing it?'

'_I believe that's how it works.' _

Alisa paused, trying to process this fact the same way she had the existence of blue hedgehogs and green portals that ate up the sky. 'So if something has a molecular structure (and let's face it, _everything_ has a molecular structure), then you can alter it? You can _change_ DNA on its most basic level?'

'_Your words mean little to me. I know what I can do, and I do it. The details are irrelevant.' _

Caulk sniffed. 'Human miss is poking her beak in where beak is not wanted. And human miss doesn't even _have_ beak.'

'_Be quiet, Caulk. Alisa is asking valid questions. Don't tell me you have never wondered.' _

He walked slowly around the chair, shifting dust mites, so that they began shimmering like small points of light. Of course, Alisa thought, the last time she checked, _light_ didn't _have_ a DNA pattern.

She turned to look at him, feeling anger she was ashamed to have forgotten. 'Why do you care about _my_ comfort anyway? You're murdering people left, right and centre out there.'

'_True. But I do not need those humans. Not alive. I need you.' _

Well, he was honest, if nothing else, Alisa sighed. 'Why?'

'_Because you are going to help me find something_.'

A second chair appeared, facing hers. Alisa shivered. 'Then I don't think I can help you. Besides why would someone who can just _create_ whatever they want even need my help?'

The figure sat down slowly in the new chair_. _'_In time you shall understand what I have learned. But it took us over a millennia of imprisonment. I don't expect you to reach the same conclusions in so short a time_.' He paused for a second. '_You were right... it is more comfortable than stone_.'

'And how do I know you're not going to mess with me the same way you did that stone?' Alisa blurted out. Funny, she hadn't realised she was afraid of that until she said so out loud.

'_Because the mind is the one artefact which I cannot affect. Your thoughts and decisions are your own, Alisa._ _As I said, I am sorry if you were made uncomfortable by our means of bringing you here. We have no wish to injure you, and I was unaware that you would be frightened_.'

'You... didn't think I'd be _frightened_?' Alisa said, dryly. 'After you picked me off the street, carried me here, andlocked me up in the dark?' She sighed in part exasperation, part distress. 'You really don't understand humans, do you?'

'_I suppose not. In my defence, it's been a long time since I _required_ such information_...'

Alisa took a breath, 'God, you're something else. Who are you? And how long is "a long time"?'

'_I can't remember. Though Caulk calls me_ Master_. That must have been what I was once_.'

'It was, Master, it was!' the bird (_Caulk_, wasn't it? Alisa wonders who had thought of naming him _that_ and if they knew how grusomely apt it was_)_. 'Is one of the things Caulk remembers clearest of all.'

'_It still fits. I suppose that you can call me that_._ As for how long... Long enough that I've forgotten most of what it means to be mortal, I suppose. I had even forgotten pain. My friend was good enough to explain it to me_.'

Once again, Alisa figured she didn't want to know. '_What_ are you, then? Where did you come from?'

'_From in between the worlds_,' the figure said, calmly.

'Between the worlds?'Alisa frowned, now feeling utterly confused, as well as nervous.

Caulk sniggered.

'_You know of them_.' The figure went on. He paused, as if seeking the right way to explain it. '_There is a space... or rather a _non_-space, between this world, and the world of Chaos. When the planet first separated into two, I was imprisoned in the void between them_.'

'Caulk was locked away too.' The bird said, now sounding cold and serious. 'Locked away in the nothing dark, nothing emptiness. Caulk stayed, because Master wished it.'

In spite of herself, in spite of absolutely everything, Alisa felt the faintest stab of sympathy for them. 'You were locked away?'

'Locked away_ seems the wrong choice of word. There were certainly no locks or chains containing us. It was not a prison so much as nonexistence. _Forgotten_ seems more appropriate.'_

Caulk is not sorry.' The bird snapped; its tone made Alisa's hair stand on end. 'Caulk did as Master wished. He remembers _that_. Caulk did as Master wished, and Caulk was happy. But Caulk hurt,' the bird shuddered, seeming suddenly to be as held together with tape and nails as he looked. 'No body, no bones. Nothing but mind and nothingness. Still pain.'

Alisa took a deep breath, trying to imagine existing like a mind in limbo. 'Who put you there?'

'Caulk is not sorry.' The bird hissed again, interrupting. Caulk will bring pain back to those who hurt. Caulk will take them apart as they took apart Master.' The bird fluttered, snapping its beak. Alisa fell back into her chair. 'Alisa _knows_ of pain and hate, does she? Alisa can understand Caulk's feelings. Can understand Master.'

'_No_,' Alisa thought, but she had never believed she could _kill_ for them. The same part of her brain that had spoken before told her that this was flawed information offered by monsters who had been trapped in purgatory for long enough to drive anyone insane. That she was only alive –and _comfortable_– for as long as she was useful. And that useful or not, she wanted no part in this.

Telling him this, however, would likely not accelerate her survival or her escape, so Alisa said something else. 'Yes. I suppose I do.'

Caulk squawked loudly, the sound echoing. Alisa wasn't sure if it were a laugh or not. 'Ha! Then human mortal creature is not so stupid after all! Alisa lady knows of hate too, does she not! Alisa lady knows pain!'

Alisa opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the Master raised its hand, and Caulk's beak snapped shut. _'Caulk, please leave me with Alisa. I wish to speak with her.' _

The bird stopped, blinking at them both with sharp eyes. 'Master does not wish Caulk be here?'

'_Not for the moment, friend. Leave us.' _

The creature fluttered slightly, seeming confused, then seemed to vanish into the darkness. Alisa listened to its receding squawks of anger and frustration. Before she knew it, he was gone and it was quiet enough for Alisa to hear her own breathing.

The being held out his clenched fist, and opened his fingers. Alias flinched back from the glowing yellow light flickering in his palm. '_Do you know of this_?'

'Of course I do, its fire. Strange looking fire, but...' she paused, swallowing. She was beginning to recognize Chaos when she saw it. 'What about it?'

Master smiled faintly. '_I once knew all about it, and I still have the memories of using it, but I had forgotten its name. I couldn't use it until Caulk reminded me. Without names we are nothing._'

'You don't need a name to be somebody!'

'_What would you know of it? You have never been without one_.' There was silence for a moment. '_You know also that a fire eats whatever it touches, just as my walls consume this planet_. _Caulk's anger is like this fire_,' Master said. '_And so it amounts to nothing. My anger shall not burn, Alisa. My anger shall be cold. As yours is. And rather than it using you, you shall manipulate it_.'

'At the risk of repeating myself, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not... angry. Well,' she shuffled. 'I am angry but that's because of all this not because... because of anything else. I don't see how my supposed anger can help you here.'

'_You... really do not understand, do you?_' The figure asked. Looking confused again. Or as confused as a being could look with that horrifying space where its facial features should have been. '_How peculiar. But it is the name which became Armstrong which I recall clearest of all. I remember it from periods of... not total emptiness. Moments in the past where I have seen this world, and almost touched it. He or she was always there. Armstrong. I had thought that you would be with them.'_

Alisa didn't even try to pretend this made sense. 'I don't know what you mean...'

'Clearly not, and yet... when my friend looked within your machine, he saw everything that to you, should be so obvious. How could you not know of us...?'

Alisa paused for a moment, working out what Master meant by "machine". Then she felt a momentary rush of anger. That creature had been inside of her _home_? Rooting about in her possessions? Looking into her _computer_? Why hadn't she noticed something like that? More to the point, why had it done it in the first place? 'You... you went inside of my home, and my work? What makes you think you had the right to do that?!'

'_It was necessary. Now Caulk may well be wrong_.' the figure chuckled amusedly. '_But computers are very rarely inaccurate, wouldn't you agree Miss Armstrong_?'

Alisa frowned in annoyance. It seemed foolish to be angered, but really, anger was the only alternative she had to fear right now. '...I... I don't know. Why do you care?'

'_I want to know your opinion on this matter. Can these computers, which seem so essential to human survival... ever be inaccurate_?'

Alias really didn't see where he was going with this, but she remembered the way his hand had closed around her wrist, his grip tighter than the bite of a coyote.

She figured she had better play along.

'They... they can lead to the wrong conclusions, I suppose. But usually that's because people gave them bad information in the first place. They can't _lie_.'

'_And do you believe that the computer which my friend Caulk accessed... contained bad information? Are you not really Alisa Armstrong, from Sol Alasmo_?'

'You seem to know a lot for someone who claims they don't remember anything about being mortal.' Alias said, scowling. 'And that bird of yours... You said that he got into my computer! He knew how to work it. If he knows how to work a machine like that then surely you do, too!'

'_You misunderstand me. I –that is Caulk, and myself- find it very easy to use computers. I can make them work and do whatever I wish them to do_.'

'How? How can you do that if you don't even know how they work?'

The creature paused for a moment, as if thinking about this. Then it seemed to shrug its huge, mismatched shoulders and said: 'I don't know. But I have always been able to do such things. Computers... electricity... stone, wind, water... earth... they are all constructed from the same base elements, and they have always done exactly what I tell them to do. I gave some of my ability to Caulk, when I created his body. Not much of it, but enough that he could access your computer and locate the information I needed.'

Alisa swallowed hard, feeling a rush of cold air from... somewhere. She couldn't imagine where. They were so far from the light... 'You... you made that thing? I mean... that bird.

'_Oh no. Caulk already existed. But... this is a very complicated thing to explain. You see, computers did not exist when I was first born. Not like they are now, at any rate. I have never used them before. I do not understand them as you do_.'

Alisa hissed out a breath through her teeth. 'Still, it seems to me that you don't really need me at all. you can find out everything you want to know just be asking for it.'

'_It must surely seem that way to you right now_,' the figure said. '_Truthfully, Alisa, I had expected you would be more informed when I met you. After all, your family has known of my existence for generations._'

'No,' Alisa snapped, reminding herself over and over that anger was better than fear. 'Nobody in my family ever mentioned anything like you! Nobody ever mentioned chaos emeralds or... or portals in the sky, of energy sucking vortexes!' She paced back and force trying to shake off the cold and pretend she wasn't standing in a room with a creature that could probably kill her quite easily is it wanted to. 'I... I grew up in some drafty little house at the back end of some boring, dead little town in the middle of nowhere! Until I was fifteen the closest I ever came to a high tech system was our home computer! _Without_ an online connection! My parents were _geologists_, for god's sakes. They didn't know you, they couldn't have!' She paused, swallowing hard. 'I don't care who or what you think I am. I don't care what you want. I'd like to leave. _Now_.'

'_I am not saying that they knew me_,' the figure said, and as Alisa watched, his shape seemed to change and morph before her, twisting steadily into something quite, quite different. Alisa sucked in a breath and held it to keep from freaking out. 'I _am saying that they knew of me. That is not quite the same thing. I had believed they would inform you but it seems that duty must fall to me. I promise you, Alisa Armstrong, that I shall make you understand_.'

* * *

There were no people on the streets of station square at the present. Not this far away from the shelters and declared "safe zones" sat any rate. So there was nobody to see the sharp blue coloured blur zipping through the alleyways and subway tunnels, nor were they aware of the orange bundle gathered in the aforementioned hedgehog's arms.

A very _noisy_ orange bundle.

'Hey, easy there, small fry,' Sonic tried not to cringe as he adjusted the rather large, squirming bundle in his arms. The kid was dripping tears into his fur and he was starting to go all soggy. The poor little guy was scared silly, fair enough, but Sonic didn't like water no matter where it came from. And the kid didn't seem to appreciate being carried over his shoulder. 'I'm tryin' to help ya here, you know.'

The child whimpered, wiping its nose on its fists. He was very young, couldn't have been older than two or so. Sonic had found him crawling around near the edges of the one of the newest Wallscapes, which had sprung up right in the middle of a residential area. He had been trying not to think too much about where his parents could've vanished too.

'...And I'm not waterproof. Yeuch! I'm sure your parents are around here some place.' _That is if they haven't been 'dusted by one of those freaky walls there_.

Of course, he didn't say this last bit out loud

The kid sniffed again. 'Yuck, yuck!' he mumbled, looking up at Sonic with an expression that suggested it was far more worried about the absence of its parents than it was about being carried around the city by a bright blue hedgehog. And anyway, both potential sources of fear could be ignored in favour of the discovery of onomatopoeia.

...Or whatever it was that you called words that sounded like "Yeuch!" .

'Yeah, right. Yuck ,yuck.' Sonic sighed. What was it about people losing kids in this city, anyway? 'Sorry about all this,' he muttered, glimpsing uneasily up at the shadow of a Wallscape. No matter where you went those damned things were always looming over you. 'Can't help but think that all of this is kinda our fault. We didn't mean to screw things up for ya, kid.

'Srewup! Scrup! Fauly faul.'

'Huh. Well, just so you know, we ain't having an easy time of it either. Anyway I guess I should probably take ya down town to the police station. That's where all the other guys like you are bein' taken. Figure they could look after ya or...'

Sonic stopped.

Being as incredibly fast as he was meant that Sonic tended to get an awful lot of attention, both in this world and back home. And he was pretty much famous worldwide because of his ability to be in one country for breakfast and a totally different one for lunch. However his incredible speed meant that many of him more natural abilities were overlooked.

Hedgehogs, for example, had extremely good hearing. And there was no sound more recognizable to Sonic (well, except maybe for Amy's high pitched shrieking, or the rattle of the X Tornado when it was due a retune) than the echo of an Eggman-authorised jet engine flying overhead.

Looking up and squinting into the distance, Sonic could just see it – a strange, egg-like shadow against a darkening sky. The small child squirmed in his arms, as if spotting it as well, and wanting to know more about it.

Sonic grinned humourlessly. End of the world nigh once again? Okay, check. Bizarre and disturbing revelation about close friend and ally? Check. Crazy super villain trying to take advantage of the situation?

Okay, he could work with that.

'Aw heck, Egghead, do you ever give up?' Sonic half chuckled. 'Hey, kid? Listen, I'm gonna play a game with ya .'

'...G'me.'

Yeah, that's right. A game. See, it's called Let's-see-how-fast-sonic-can-get-ya-to-a-nice-police-officer-before-he-has-to-go-kick-eggman-butt-again. Sound fun?

The boy sniffled. 'Gig Eggmun's bud.'

'_Now_ you're getting it.' Sonic shifted the soggy bundle into a better running-position. 'Let's go. In three... two... _one_...'

* * *

**Homages and Gacks.**

**The phrase: "_Caulk's anger is like fire_,' Master said. '_And so his anger amounts to nothing. My anger shall not burn, Alisa. My anger shall be cold. As yours is. And rather than it using you, you shall manipulate it_.' Originally comes from a quote in chapter ten of _Ender's Game. The original quote reads:_**_ "He could see Bonzo's anger growing hot. Hot anger was bad. Ender's anger was cold, and he could use it. Bonzo's was hot, and so it used him."_ **Pretty sure I've gacked that one before, actually. Oh well.**


	5. Four: Issues

****

****

**Well, looks like I'm still here. And amazingly enough, if you're reading this, then so are you. So I can finally get back to a little bit of what Sonic X is **_**really**_** about: kicking Eggman's butt on a regular basis. **

**Well, okay. Not really. Not yet. But Eggman's back at least, that's something, right? **

**Standard disclaimers apply, reviews and concrit are appreciated. **

* * *

Issues. 

**_The Prower-Thorndyke Inter-World Encyclopaedic Reference (A Comprehensive Work in Progress). _**

_**Breach, (noun): **A rare type of quantum-physical anomaly. Breaches are temporary "portals" which occasionally form between the two worlds. Kind of like a rip in time and space. Breaches, as their name suggests, are capable of breaking through the barrier between **Earth** and our world, bringing them into temporary contact with each other, and allowing people who were within the Breach at its moment of creation to transfer between the worlds. The "Breach" phenomenon usually occurs as a result of a large fluctuation of Chaos Energies in the surrounding area. Unlike **Portals**, which are artificial in nature, can be turned on and off at will, and are under the control of their users, Breaches are uncontrollable surges of energy and cannot (to the best of our current knowledge anyway) be harnessed as a stable means of transportation. _

_NOTES: I would like to make a correction to the above statement: Some individuals have been found who are capable of creating Controlled Breaches between the worlds. These people possess an ability known as **Chaos Control**. Precisely how Chaos Control functions is unknown. Further research is warranted. See the sections on **Sonic the Hedgehog**, **Project Shadow**, **Non-Chaos Inter-World Transportation**, and **Chaos Control** for further information._

_(Update Number 26, by M. Prower.)_

**

* * *

**

The Wallscapes were moving again.

Tails watched them all uneasily via the cameras they had set up around the University, and at several other key points throughout the city. (There had been seven cameras to begin with, but a Wall had came down on one of them, so they probably wouldn't be getting it back.) He was multitasking, watching the screens, tracing the patterns of the Wallscapes' movement onto large maps spread out in the Thorndyke's workshop using thumb tacks and pencils, and making rapid notes on the computer with his free hand.

Elsewhere in the room, grandpa was helping to coordinate relief efforts with Topaz and Mister Tanaka; Amy and Cream were off helping Ella, Sonic was probably just _being _Sonic: running about the town and helping out whoever needed him; Knuckles was pacing about the laboratory and getting in Tails' and Chuck's way (often wandering over to look at the shattered Chaos Emerald in the vague hope that it had repaired itself while he wasn't looking), and Chris...

Well, Chris was being a pain in the tails.

'Are you sure you don't need help? You're doing three things at once. I still say you should call Helen and find out it she's found anything at university.'

'Chris, we've been through this,' Tails mumbled, still typing. 'The phone lines aren't working so we can't call _anyone_. Now please, get back on the diagnostic table; you're supposed to be staying still.'

'Oh... right.' Chris was wandering around the large table looking at Tails' maps. With the telephone and satellite network being affected by the Wallscapes, these large, paper diagrams were the best they could come up with to monitor what was going on. Tails figured that this must be how the weatherman felt all the time, only worse. 'Well, what about using the communicator to call Uncle Sam and—'

'The phone lines aren't _working_; get back on the diagnostic table.'

'Fax machines?'

'_Phone lines. Diagnostic table_.' Tails sighed. He didn't mean to lose his patience, but he refused to believe that a guy who could neutralize a virus as fast as Tails could program it was honestly having difficulty comprehending the fact that they had no terrestrial communication whatsoever. 'Phonelines, fax machines, police radio, they _all _use the same system, remember? C'mon, Chris, you know all of this stuff.

There was a moment of silence before a still very-much-not-moving-towards-the-diagnostic-table Chris suggested: '...Have we tried tin cans with string?'

Tails found himself smiling. How silly, this wasn't a laughing matter at all. 'You're trying to distract me, and it's not working.'

Chris finally relented and got back on the table. Wordlessly, Tails reached out and flicked some switches to set the scanner constructing detailed internal diagrams of the boy's body working again. Hopefully Chris would stay long enough for them to get some actual readings this time. Not that it would tell them anything they didn't already know. The scanner they had here in the Thorndyke's laboratory wasn't nearly as high tech as the ones in the university building, but Grandpa thought that maybe it would pick up something they had missed. Chris wasn't so much trying to distract Tails as he was trying to distract _himself_. Tails couldn't blame him; he would have been pretty freaked out too if he were in Chris's shoes right now.

In fact, scratch that – he _was_ freaked out. By _everything_ that had been happening lately. None of it made one bit of sense, and Tails _liked _for things to make sense.

He looked uneasily back at one of his six remaining cameras. They would have to move a couple of them soon, since the Wallscapes looked like they were going to fall right on top of them. Tails thought about what might happen if the Wallscapes came down over the Mansion or the university... He pushed away a tremble at the thought of Sonic, or Helen, or Grandpa, trapped inside one of those horrible Surfaces.

It was honestly amazing. Huge funnels designed for siphoning energy away from planet earth, not to mention seriously disrupting satellite and radio signals worldwide... The very idea of the Wallscapes was kind of crazy, and yet also brilliant. Tails would have been impressed, if all of that power wasn't being used so destructively.

_And if we don't work out what's causing it soon_, he thought grimly. _Then there might not be anything _left_ of the earth for us to save_.

So yeah, all in all, they weren't having the best of all possible weeks.

Chris was having a pretty bad day himself. It wasn't every day that someone discovered they'd had a fragment of an extremely powerful energy source (somehow) implanted where their heart should be. Which sounded even weirder when you said it out loud, Tails thought. There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the sound of the medical scanner whirring and the quiet, tense voices of Tanaka and Grandpa nearby.

'So, Tails, about that name you've been using for the monsters we've encountered... _Neorex_?' Chris said, eventually.

Tails shuffled uncomfortably. He'd been wondering when somebody was going to bring that up. 'Uh... Yeah. I mean, we need to call them _something_ besides just _the scary monsters that come from the sky, _so why not that?'

'Well... because they're _not_, for one thing,' Chris flexed his fingers beneath the lights of the scanner and tilted his head slightly to the left. The recovered fragment of Master Emerald, and the sole Chaos Emerald they had managed to hang onto after Shadow and Sonic's battle with the oil monster lay on cloths beneath another scanner. Tails really hoped it wasn't just his imagination and that the pieces of Chaos Emerald really were a lot closer together and less... crumbly than they had been last night. It seemed to be responding positively to its exposure to a shard of Master Emerald they had also recovered. They were relying on the Chaos Emerald to somehow heal itself, just as the Master Emerald did whenever it was damaged. 'This is a totally different enemy to Dark Oak, right?'

'Chris, please stay still, you're messing with the scanner. Ours aren't as good as the ones at university.'

'Oh... sorry.' Chris pulled his hand down and there was a moment of silence before he spoke again. 'You didn't answer my question. Why'd you call them Neorex?'

'I dunno.' Tails sighed, then after another pause he added: 'No, wait. Yes I do. Surely you've felt it, Chris? When that oil monster appeared in the city, and that shadow filled the sky,' he hesitated. 'Everything felt so cold and empty, it reminded me of being at the centre of the Galaxy.'

'Coordinates Zero, Zero, Zero?'

'Right. It just seemed to fit them. Besides, think of it this way: we _beat _the Metarex, right?' Tails said, plastering a grin across his face. 'So, I bet we can beat _these_ guys, too.'

Chris smiled back faintly. 'Still, I wonder what their _real_ name is. They must have come from somewhere. What do they want from us?'

'From the looks of it, everything we have to give,' Knuckles grumbled. 'And we don't even know what they must be doing to _our_ world on the other side of the portal.'

'What could it be doing to your world?' Chris frowned.

'Well the two realities are connected, right?' Knuckles said, looking uncomfortably at the shattered Chaos Emerald glittering in its sealed container. 'And when we came here, the Master Emerald pieces were causing breaches to appear all over the place. _That's _how we got back to this world: well, most of us, provided that Cream and I didn't just come through your portal. That connection is still there, no doubt. Whatever the Wallscapes are doing here, they're probably also having some kind of an effect back home.'

'How can you be so sure?' Tails asked, hoping Knuckles' answer would be "_I'm not_." No such luck.

'I've had time to think about it, I might be a little _Chaos Blind_ right now, but I can still predict how the Master Emerald behaves. Even when it's being controlled by an outside force. And what's more, I still have the abilities granted to me as a Guardian.' He sounded serious, Tails thought, as if speaking for a crowd he needed to impress instead of two old friends.

'So... do you have any idea what it was that we saw yesterday?' Tails asked uncertainly, shuddering when he thought about the huge, strange, not-quite-human sillouette that had appeared in the sky over Station Square (why on earth did the End of the World as they knew it always seem to come back to this place?).

'Not really,' Knuckles admitted. 'But whatever we're dealing with here, it's very, very _old_. Possibly even older than the Tribes.'

Tails paused to let this fact sink in. The Echidna Tribes, he knew, were one of the oldest races in their world. You didn't really _get_ much more ancient than them.

'And me?' Chris asked.

'You, I still have no answers for,' Knuckles said. He sounded calm, but Tails knew Knuckles too well not to recognize a mask when he saw it. Inside, Knuckles was fizzing away like a barely contained chemical reaction. Every time he looked at Chris, Tails could practically see the echidna flinching, as if unable to quite believe what he was seeing. As if Chris couldn't possibly be real, or that there was something innately _wrong _with his presence.

'You're sure that you don't feel any different?' Tails asked, looking over the scanners preliminary results, unsure if he wanted Chris's answer to be yes or no.

Chris shook his head. 'Unless you count the stomach-ache, and I'm pretty sure that's a natural reaction to being told your heart has turned into a Chaos Emerald.'

'It's not a Chaos Emerald,' Knuckles corrected. 'It's a crystallising phenomenon, yes, but what's inside of you better resembles the composition of the _Master_ Emerald. There's a difference.'

Chris chuckled lightly. 'Thanks, Knuckles, the specifics make me feel a lot better.'

Tails tried to remember the time he'd first noticed Chris was learning the art of sarcasm. He couldn't pinpoint an exact moment, but he felt sure that Vector and Espio had had something to do with it. He bit his lip, hoping that everyone back in their own world was okay.

Knuckles gave Chris that _look_ again. 'It _should_. Having a Chaos Emerald inside of you would be like walking around with a time bomb strapped to your chest. You probably couldn't even go _near_ Sonic or Shadow for fear of setting off a reaction. The Master Emerald is more stable, so the risks of spontaneous combustion are somewhat reduced.'

Chris breathed out. 'Uh. Okay, good. Now I really _do_ feel better. I think.'

Knuckles gave Chris a look which clearly stated "_No you don't_", but said nothing. The scanner beeped loudly and Chris immediately sat up and shifted out from under the bright light. 'Well, I guess—'

Whatever Chris had been about to guess, Tails would never find out, because this was the moment Amy burst into the workshop, wearing her best _Sonic-forgot-our-date-and-now-he's-a-goner_ glare, and with Cream just a hop and a skip behind her. 'Tails!' Amy snapped. '_Where_ is Sonic?'

Her commotion attracted the attention of Grandpa, Tanaka and Topaz, who came over to see what all the fuss was about. 'Uh...' Tails shuffled. 'I'm... not sure, Amy. Why?'

Amy looked at him suspiciously for a few more seconds, and Tails swallowed a nervous chuckle (well, he really _didn't_ know where Sonic was this time). Then Amy sighed. 'Oh, _great_! He didn't even tell _you_ where he was going? That is _so_ like him! I mean, the world is coming to an end, we can't use phones, there might be more crazy monsters in the city, and what's his solution to this major crisis? Go for a run! As _usual_! Honestly, why does he always—Oh... Hi Chris.'

'Hey Amy.' If Chris was annoyed by her overlooking him, he didn't show it. Tails, however, looked at Amy curiously, as she momentarily deflated into a muddled silence.

She soon recovered her earlier poise however. 'Tails, we just got a message sent to us by Helen. They've spotted the _Egg Carrier_!'

Tails blinked, realising that whatever it was that had Amy so mad, her anger wasn't really directed at Sonic.

'The Egg Carrier.' Chris finished with a groan. 'Sounds like Eggman's back.'

Topaz, who had been pondering the maps a few feet away, snapped her head round. 'I'm sorry, Chris, but I think I just heard the name "_Eggman_" and the descriptor "_back_". Please, tell me that I _didn't_.'

'Okay, you didn't?' Cream said helpfully.

Topaz sighed running a hand through her hair. 'Oh, just _dandy_. I should've known he had something to do with this! Where's he been hiding all this time?'

'I don't think he's been hiding at all,' Knuckles said. 'If Eggman wielded _this_ much control over Chaos Energy then he'd have taken over both worlds a long time ago. Not that he isn't trouble, but my guess is that old Egghead is a bystander in this too. He's probably only just got here.'

'_And I bet he's as confused as we are_.' Tails thought. He realised that this was a little _too_ hopeful a thing to be thinking about Eggman to be considered sane, but he thought it nonetheless. The idea of having to deal with yet _another_ evil bad guy on top of everything else was a little too much for him.

'Well then, we'd better not panic.' Grandpa said. 'If I know Sonic, then he's already out there, dealing with Eggman as we speak. Who knows, maybe we can even get out of this _without_ something blowing up in our faces.'

Tails pretends not to notice the shudder that passes across Chris's shoulders at his grandfather's words.

'Whatever the case, some of us had better go see if he needs us.' Grandpa went on. 'Topaz, Tanaka, you both need to stay here and wait for word from the authorities. I'm pretty sure our house will be needed for _something_ sooner or later; we're the biggest building for miles which hasn't been eaten by those Walls yet. Tails, you'll have to stay here with the maps and keep check. Cream, would you help him dear?'

'Yes, sir!' Cream piped, clearly glad of the chance to be helpful.

'Good. The rest of you, either follow me or be useful here, whichever you prefer.' Grandpa tossed a set of keys in the air. 'I'll drive.'

There were a number of anxious faces pulled. Clearly, everyone was remembering what happened the _last_ time Grandpa Chuck was let loose behind the wheel of a car. Amy still hadn't gotten her quill-style back to normal. Chris bit his lip. 'Ah, grandpa, maybe I should drive this time—'

'Not a _chance_, Chris. Not until we've gotten you properly checked out.'

Chris swallowed, and Tails wondered if Chris was aware that his hand was creeping to his heart. Probably not. '_Grandpa_, I've been through a thousand tests already!'

'No you've been through _fifteen_ tests, half of which aren't complete yet. That's hardly a thousand. You're not getting behind the wheel of a car, airplane, bicycle, or any other vehicle, or for that matter go _swimming_, until I'm absolutely certain that... Well that...'

'What? That I'm not gonna drop dead behind the steering wheel?' Chris snapped. He realised in retrospect that he was being a little blunt, because Amy visibly swallowed, and Cream squeaked a little in alarm. Chris looked sheepish. 'Uh, sorry. But really, it can't be all that dangerous, I _feel_ fine!'

Grandpa's expresison was hard and serious. 'So do I most of the time, you'd never believe I have a pacemaker. That's not the point,' Grandpa said, speaking to Chris the way he probably did when he was six, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he was the senior authority on such issues. 'Your mother, for one, will kill me if she gets back to find I've been letting you drive around. And she _will _be back,' he enforced, sounding more certain. 'You can count on that. Either come with us, or don't, but you're not driving.' Then he looked up, indicating that the debate was over. 'Now are we going to go see what the megalomaniac is up to this time, or am I leaving alone?'

'Ha, as _if_,' Amy muttered, displaying her customary bravery in her willingness to get back in a car with grandpa. 'I call the front seat!'

'I can't believe he honestly thinks Chris is more of a risk behind the wheel than he is,' Knuckles whispered, and once again Tails couldn't quite suppress a smile.

* * *

Actually he was almost _glad_ that this was happening.

Not that having to take on a crazy, wannabe dictator who wanted to control the world was a _good_ thing, but it was, if nothing else, familiar. It was a chance for Sonic to deal with something already _knew_ he could take, instead of some unknown shadow and source of monsters that he couldn't even _see_. So he chased the Egg Carrier through the streets of Station Square, weaving deftly between buildings and wondering why Eggman didn't actually _attack_ anything. People scattered in the streets as he passed, clearly remembering Eggman's presence in their city years ago, and reading into it just as the Doctor probably wanted them too.

The Doctor knew Sonic was there, of course. He _had_ to know. It would usually be impossible for Sonic to get this close to the Carrier without Eggman at least being aware of it... Well, at least it would be impossible to get so close at _this_ speed. Sonic could be there and gone before Eggman even knew he was in the _country_ if he wanted to. Though Sonic had to admit, that while he'd taken on Eggman a thousand times before, he felt a little underpowered today without the Chaos Emeralds to back him up. He felt a stab of annoyance as he remembered the Monster from yesterday dragging the Emeralds out of his grip like they were children's toys before he and Shadow scattered them.

'_Well_, _I probably rely on those things too much, anyway. I don't _need_ the Emeralds to deal with Eggman_.'

The Egg Carrier swerved a little too sharply, almost crashing into a tower block as it passed. Okay, that was enough already. Sonic picked up his pace, cutting across a few rooftops and _jumping_, putting himself directly in front of the Egg Carrier. To anyone watching it would've looked like a mouse sizing up against a bulldog. Sonic realised belatedly that they had found themselves on the same streets that he had ran down yesterday with Tails.

The Egg Carrier finally span and whirled in the air before coming to a sharp halt, the huge ship dipping as low between the buildings. Sonic heard a familiar, high pitched chuckle of amusement as a camera, extending on a snake-like support, emerged from inside of the ship, and zoomed in close to his face, blinding as if it were a real eye.

Sonic stood there, wearing the expression of the decidedly not-amused, waiting.

'_Well_, Egghead? Convinced it's me in the flesh yet?' he asked impatiently, after about sixty seconds of scanning.

'_Hmmm, well unless old Shadow has had a little makeover, then yes, I believe it _is_ my old enemy Sonic_.' Eggman sneered. Or rather, his _voice_ sneered, coming from large speakers set into the Egg Carrier's shell. Eggman sure liked to make himself heard. _'Well then, what mess have you gotten us into this time, eh, Sonic? Or should I say, what mess has that pesky human brat of yours gotten us into?' _

Sonic blinked. 'What's he got to do with anything?'

'_Oh, you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about,' _Eggman chuckled_. 'First thing I thought upon getting to this world and seeing those walls everywhere was "what the hell has that Thorndyke kid gotten us into this time?" I should've probably left him in our world, where I could keep an eye on him.' _

'Maybe. But'cha didn't, did you?'_ You sent him home. Didn't even give us a chance to say goodbye, _Sonic thought, then flattened the annoyance this thought stirred with a grin. He wasn't sure how to feel about it. Sending Chris home had been a good thing, really; an _unusually_ good thing for Eggman, in fact. If it weren't for him, Chris would never have gotten home at all. But then, maybe none of this would've happened...

Eggman grunted in disgust. _'My mistake, I admit. Humans... Ha! They can never leave well enough alone. I could almost understand their actions, if their ambitions had more tangible results, but it seems that all they're good for is destroying things. A pity. They have _such_ potential; if only they could better harness it. It seems that being separated from this world was quite a blessing for me.'_

'Heh. Yeah, 'cause you're _all_ about the results, Eggman. Anyway, I thought all of this had something to do with _you_.' It was a lie. Sonic knew that Eggman couldn't possibly have anything to do with this, but _Eggman_ didn't have to know that. Besides, Sonic wanted to test his honesty a little. His hands twitched, and a little voice in the back of his brain asked why he wasn't kicking Eggman's butt already. Sonic ignored it. If being in this world once before had taught him anything, then it was that there was a place and a time to run and fight. This wasn't the time for either.

'_No. Much as I'd _like_ to take credit for something this spectacular, it has nothing to do with me. I want to _rule_ this world, not _eat _it. It'__s__ peculiar though, wouldn't you say_?' The camera-eye which had been scanning Sonic turned to face the tinted green sky. '_I can't think what anyone would _want _with all this energy... Power isn't much use unless you can convert it into something. All this seems to be doing is sucking earth dry._'

'I don't really wanna find out. Look, are you here to make comments or to muscle in on the action?' Sonic asked. Being around Eggman for this long without fighting was making him twitchy.

'_Ha! I'm not here to play games with you, Sonic. I have more important tasks at hand.' _

Sonic grinned. 'Yeah? Meaning that ya left our world without your robot army and know you couldn't take me without 'em. Right?'

There was a sputtering sound. _'Bah! Think whatever you like, rat. As it happens the Egg carrier is _more_ than capable of dealing with any spiny rodents that get in its way.' _

'_Uh... but he's kinda right, boss,' _a squeaky voice, probably Bokkun, said_. 'We _did_ sorta leave without packing first.' _

'_Oh, shut _up_! Anyhow, I allied myself with you once, Sonic, when the fate of the universe was at stake. However this time I'm not convinced it's worth the effort. This is just one little planet. What do *I* care for the fate of humans?_'

'I can believe that. But I know what you _do_ care about,' Sonic grinned, rubbing an ear. 'The Chaos Emeralds are lost on this planet again.'

'_`Indeed, that's _exactly _what I'm here for. It's what I'm going to find. Then I'm going back to our world, before this one has been sucked dry as a bone. It'll be of no use to me then. You should probably leave yourself_,' he added, in what was obviously a pointed jibe. '_Get out while you still can, hedgehog. I've done some tests, and from what I can see this entire planet has barely a month before there's nothing left but dust. My enemies are no fun if they're chalk dust_.'

'As if,' Sonic growled, though he had to admit, suddenly having a time limit on things was making him a little more nervous. Barely a month? To get rid of all of these walls and save the earth? Half of the world could've been disintergrated by then, and as much as he hated to admit it, he'd barely had enough power with Shadow combined to take out just _one _of the smaller walls.

But then again, a month could be a lot of time when you were as fast as Sonic. 'Boooring. You know we've had this talk before, Egghead.' Sonic said. 'It always ends the same way.'

'_Yes, yes, "I'll defeat you no matter what, you'll never get your hands on the Chaos Emeralds, leave my precious little humans alone", yadda, yadda_,' Eggman sounded bored. '_Let's skip the diatribe this time round and get to the point. If you _want_ to stay in this world and get yourself killed along with those poor, defenceless human beings, then that's _your _problem. Just so long as you stay out of my way, I don't care what happens. I'm going to find those Chaos Emeralds. And who knows..._' he added thoughtfully. '_Maybe in the process I'll figure out what's creating all of these powerful weapons of destruction, and take that power for myself_.'

There was another bark of laughter, followed by the sound of engines whirring. Sonic had to move quickly to avoid being caught in the back-draft of the afterburners as the Egg Carrier leapt back into the sky. Then, as if in an afterthought, something small and dark tumbled out of the back of the Carrier as it ascended. Sonic recognized what it was just in time to jump out of the way before it exploded, and was left coughing on acrid grey smoke. The sound of Bokkun's whistling, irritating mirth faded away.

'Eww, smoke bombs. Yuck, stupid Eggbot,' Sonic muttered, brushing down his fur as he watched the ascending Egg Craft until it was little more than a speck in the green sky.

Well, that was kind of anti-climatic.

Still for once, _just_ this once, Eggman had said something which Sonic was willing to pay attention to. His words rang over and over in Sonic's mind, like an after echo. "_Power isn't much use unless you convert it into something_."

He was probably right, Sonic realised. So, what _was_ the energy of the earth being used for?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an approaching vehicle with a familiarly stuttering engine. There was a call of 'Sonic!' and Sonic grinned, turning to see Grandpa Chuck's car screeching to a halt nearby. Grandpa, Amy, Knuckles, and Chris piled out, Amy with her hammer, and Knuckles with the surly expression he usually wore when he was all psyched up to hit something. Sonic was a little sorry to disappoint them.

They all seemed to deflate when he waved to them, indicating that whatever danger there might have been, it was now over. 'Hey, guys. Sorry, looks like you all missed the show.' Not that there had _been_ much of a show to speak of. He glimpsed at Chris as they approached.

'Helen sent a message to us, she'd seen you with the Egg Carrier, and just now...' Chris looked up at the sky. The Egg Craft was now nothing more than a dot in the distance. 'That _was _Eggman, wasn't it? He's really here?'

Sonic nodded. 'Yup. Looks that way. It's a regular reunion party this week, isn't it?'

'Urgh! That _coward_. He didn't even stick around so I could give him what for.' Amy grumbled as her hammer vanished in a puff of smoke. 'What does he want _this_ time?'

'Pretty much what he always wants, I think.' Sonic muttered. 'For us to stay out of the way while he pulls some other stupid world-takeover scheme or whatever. He's looking for the Chaos Emeralds, and I dunno about you guys, but I think we should probably try and find them before he does.' Sonic looked back at Chris. 'Hey, I thought you were supposed to be staying at home?'

Whatever response Sonic had been expecting to this fairly innocent statement, it was _not_ the response he got. Chris blinked at him incredulously. 'And do _what_? Spend hours sticking thumbtacks into maps?'

'Hey, that's an important job.' Sonic said defensively, feeling taken aback by the annoyed tone of Chris's voice. 'It's the only way we can keep track of all these Wallscapes, remember?'

'Of course I remember.' Chris said, his voice sharper than Sonic remembered it ever being before. 'But don't you think I'm a lot more use to you out here, using my brain, than I am stuck back there?'

'Uh...' Sonic realised that in spite of being able to think of a comeback for just about any evil villain in the universe, he was completely unable to think of a response to the anger in Chris's face, nor did he at all understand why it was directed at _him_. He looked to Grandpa Chuck for an explanation, but Chuck looked just as stunned as Sonic felt. 'Sure I do, buddy. But it's not like anything really happened. Eggman was just dropping a threat, that's all. Well, a threat and a smoke bomb. Besides, Tails wanted to run more tests, make sure you're okay with this—'

Chris flinched, and Sonic suddenly felt the human grip his hand and _pull_. Amy yelped in surprise, and Grandpa Chuck made a protesting noise, but Chris ignored them. Gripping Sonic's hand, he pushed it against his neck, so that Sonic could feel the familiar thrumming of a human's blood flow underneath his fingers. His grip was almost tight enough to hurt. 'Whoa! Hey, what—?'

'Feel that!' Chris snapped, voice rising. 'I may not have a heartbeat but I've still got a pulse! Which means my blood is flowing, which means it's still transporting oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide, diaphragm, lungs and all! In short, Sonic, I'm still breathing, I'm still walking around, and I haven't passed out in over forty eight hours. There is nothing the matter with me!'

The hand gripping Sonic's was shaking slightly. Sonic wasn't sure if it was due to anger or to something else. Something scarier. Sonic had never _seen_ a look like that before, not from _him_, and was at a loss to explain what it meant. 'Chris...'

'No. _Enough_ with this already, I can take Grandpa and Cream and everyone else acting like I'm gonna snap in two, and Knuckles looking at me like I'm an Eggbot, but not _you_, Sonic_. I. Am_. _Fine!_'

Chris let go of Sonic's hand so abruptly that Sonic stumbled, surprised by the strength in that small, human body. Chris turned and walked away, not in the direction of the car but back into the city and, Sonic guessed, towards the university. He ignored Amy's confused yell and Grandpa Chuck angrily demanding that he come back right away and apologise. Knuckles cast Sonic a quick, uneasy look that spoke volumes. By the time Sonic looked back, Chris was gone.

Sonic was left stood there, wondering how he'd just gotten more of a fight out of one of his best friends than he had out of Eggman.


	6. Five: Waves

**I apologise for the punny chapter title. I'm in that sort of mood. Once again, I have left you far too long waiting for this, and again I apologise. I really don't mean to be such a terribly slow and easily distracted writer. **

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* * *

**

Going Down in Waves. 

The air at the lakeside was cool and still, mostly thanks to the dark shadows of a nearby Wallscape blotting out the sun. Jemima Brinkley was drifting amongst the crowds with a basket full of snack food and canned drinks while trying her best not to look up. It was impossible to get away from the Walls –they were scattered everywhere across town and the surrounding countryside, but by now most people had started pretending they weren't there. It didn't help much.

It was probably a typical human reaction, Jemima thought to herself as she gazed at the crowds huddled around tents and portable heaters on the bank. When things went wrong, when their lives were threatened, people often headed for water. She wasn't sure why this was. There were a thousand possible explanations, if you were the kind of person who wasted time thinking about it. Maybe it was because water meant boats and boats meant _escape_. Or maybe it was linked to far older instincts; going back to the time when humans had first crawled out of the primordial ocean and traded in their flippers for hands and feet. They were trying to run back to the place their ancestors called home. _Home_ _meant safety._

They really should teach more people at school about _Vesuvius_, Jemima thought. People had run for the beaches then, and it hadn't saved them. And these disturbing Wallscapes seemed ever less discriminating than the volcano had been. It seemed that nowhere was really safe. Jemima's family hadn't been happy when she insisted on going to help with the relief efforts, but they hadn't stopped her. Jemima had been right on the edge of the Walls when they first came down, and had narrowly missed getting her legs chopped off by one of them. She wanted to feel as if she was doing something to help, so she had volunteered at the Police Station to assist the refugees by the lake where she worked. She may have been small, she said, but she was strong, and ready to offer any help they needed.

And now here she was, handing out soft drinks, sandwiches and the occasional bag of candy to a bunch of nervous people; refugees in their own city. Somehow, Jemima had thought she'd be doing something a little more... well, useful.

'Aren't you a little young to be out here, organizing snack breaks?' A voice said over her shoulder. The tone was casual and jocular, and for some reason (probably the feeling that this really wasn't the time for jokes or comments about her age), that irked her. Jemima whirled around, coming face to face with a light haired man in a brown suit; glasses perched on the end of his nose.

'I'm sorry,' she said dryly. 'And you are...?'

'Just an interested spectator.' The man said. He was looking out over the waters of the lake. Unlike most of the refugees who were huddling in scared, confused bunches all around them, this man seemed almost relaxed as he gazed across the water. Jemima had to admit, he'd be kind of cute if it wasn't for that knowing smirk. 'Pretty strange what's been going on around here lately, isn't it?'

Jemima grunted, handing a bag of potato chips to an unhappy looking child, who brightened slightly at the idea of food. 'I've even been hearing about monsters appearing in the middle of town,' the man went on. 'And there are rumours that the gateways between worlds have been opening once again...'

'Oh, yeah. _Strange_.' Jemima muttered, dryly. 'The whole world is being eaten by giant green walls that're leaving behind nothing but white powder and holes in the landscape. We're totally a candidate for "_The United States' Weirdest Hometowns_".'

'Well, either that or "_Mysterious Theatre Zone 2010_", the man chuckled, seemingly missing (or just ignoring) her sarcasm. 'And here you are being all professional and grown up, handing out drinks and food when you're probably just as nervous as everyone else. I would've thought a young girl like you would be with your family. Especially with all those reports about monsters appearing in the city... And there are even rumours of people sighting something called the _Egg Carrier_ in the centre of town. Though maybe you're a little young to know what that is?'

Jemima whirled around, trying very hard not to let her annoyance show on her face. 'Hey, I'm not too young for _anything_, Mister. I'll have you know I'm older than I look.'

The man, to his benefit, looked a little contrite. 'I'm sorry; I didn't mean to offend you. I'm just looking for the organizer around here. Do you know who I should talk to?'

'Yeah? Well, my name is Jemima. That over there is my boathouse.'

'_Your_ boathouse?' The man looked sceptical.

'Yes! Well... no,' Jemima shuffled. 'My uncle runs the paddle-swan hiring service at the boating lake. I just help out. But I get paid and given breaks, so it's a _proper_ job.'

'Ah. Well then, good for every kid who can hold down an important job like Resident Skipper and ad lib Snack Provider for Refugees.'

Jemima sighed impatiently. 'You know, you're not funny, right?'

'I wasn't trying to be, really.' He sounds genuine, but then, a lot of people do and aren't. Jemima wonders if it's right for her to feel so cynical at her age. 'I respect your dedication, you could've just gone with your family but you stayed out here to help people. That was a good thing to do. When I was your age... well, I'm not sure I would've done the same thing. I'd probably have been more interested in videotaping the whole thing.'

Jemima felt herself softening a little. 'Yeah, well... I don't feel like much of a hero. I feel like we've been left in the lurch here. I mean, how many police officers do you see?' She brandished a hand at the impromptu camping ground all around them. At the dozens upon dozens of people huddled around the banks and at the edges of the woodland. 'Six or something? And a handful of volunteers? That's not nearly enough to deal with about five hundred refugees!'

'More like two and a half thousand refugees, actually,' the man answers, dryly. 'But I can understand your frustration. Having no phone line connections doesn't help matters. Still, I'm sure they're doing their best. I was in town earlier today and I saw some of the relief efforts for myself. The Conestoga Police Force is working as hard as they can to help everyone possible, but they're not an army.'

'Oh, then where _is_ the army? Where are GUN, and CLIP and the rest of the military? Why hasn't the president sent somebody to help us? We have no idea what's going on outside of the city, for all we know we've been completely abandoned.'

'Well that's unlikely now, isn't it?' The man said. 'They aren't going to just desert us like that. Besides we have no way of knowing for sure just how far out these Wallscapes have gone. They could be covering half of the country. And they _could_ have already sent out the military to help us. But the phone lines and communication systems are down, so... we can't know for sure.'

Jemima sighed. At this point, she wasn't sure whether knowing what was going on would make her feel any better than not knowing. ' .'

'Believe me, the government takes Station Square a lot more seriously than you'd think. After all, it's been the site of some rather... interesting phenomenon over the last five years.'

'And you'd know all about that, would you?'

'I know a few things, yes,' the man smiled, reaching into his jacket and withdrawing an unfamiliar looking card. 'Sorry, that wasn't the best possible introduction. Let's start over. My name is Franklyn Stewart; I'm an investigator with Station Square's Police Unit.'

Jemima's frown deepened slightly. 'A reporter?'

'Well, no, not really. I've dabbled in newspaper work, but right now I'm working for the government. I was here on a different job when this whole thing started... Funny how things turn out, isn't it?' He flashed a winning smile. 'So I guess _I'm_ your link to the outside world for now. I'm interested in finding out more about what's happening, listening to people's stories. You seemed like a good place to start.'

'What's there to tell?' Jemima frowned, wrinkling her nose. 'Walls fell from the sky. People died. And now I'm stuck here handing out snacks to the survivors, waiting for somebody to come and help us. Not much of a story if you ask me.'

Frankly chuckled. 'Only in Station Square could they consider something like that to be _not much of a story_. You know in Filmdom City they make _movies_ out of those kinds of tales,' Franklyn chuckled lightly. Then he looked up and out across the water. His smile suddenly faded as he focussed on something. 'Do you see that?' he asked, his voice was suddenly serious and cold.

Jemima blinked, and then followed the point of his finger out towards the middle of the lake. Normally at this time of day the water would be calm and serene, with barely the fish, pedal boats, and the occasional duck to disturb the surface. But now something is stirring in the middle of the lake, pushing the water into a bubbling froth unlike anything created by shoals of catfish or pedal boats. Jemima squinted, lifting her binoculars to her face and peering into the water. Franklyn was already doing the same (though where he'd gotten his binoculars was anybody's guess). Something was frothing and building in the middle of the lake, almost a fifth of a mile out from the shore.

'Uh… Mister Stewart, is it my imagination or—?'

'Or is something moving out there?' Franklyn finishes her sentence and keeping his voice as low as he could. 'I guess it could be a seal…'

Jemima shot him a disdainful look. 'This is a _boating _lake in the middle of an industrial city. We don't have _seals_.'

'Oh, I know,' Franklyn says, biting his bottom lip nervously. 'That was just wishful thinking. We need to get everyone away from the water's edge.'

_Something's coming_, Jemima thought. She could feel it, like a thunderstorm growing inside her chest. And as she watched the water seething and bubbling in the middle of the lake, this sensation of foreboding grew ever stronger, until it felt like icy spiders racing up and down her spine. There was a taste like static electricity building on her tongue and Jemima could swear that one of those distant sickly green walls of energy has begun to _pulse_.

By now people on the banks had noticed the commotion and the prickling of fear. Small waves have begun lapping at the shore around their feet, the murky green waters shimmering, and a few people started looking up in barely contained panic, still on edge from the destruction and chaos that had been wreaked on them only the other day. As soon as they realised what was going on, Jemima noted, all hell was going to break loose.

'Jemima,' Franklyn repeated, more urgently this time. 'I need you to run for one of those police officers, honey. As fast as you can.'

Jemima nodded, but it was an automatic gesture. She didn't move at first, too mesmerised by the growing swell in the depths of the lake and the shuddering sensation down her spine. It took a few moments before she recognized the feeling. It was exactly the same sensation she had been aware of only yesterday, when the first of the walls had fallen…

'Jemima!' Franklyn snapped, and his voice dragged her out of her stupor. Jemima began to run through the stirring crowds at the water side in the direction of the nearest blue uniform.

Then the roar erupted from the waves with all the force of an earthquake. Waves began battering the previously calm river banks, sucking sandwiches and loose wrappers into the growing swirl. Behind her, she could hear people muttering in growing fear as something rose from the waves like a monster from the deep.

Jemima didn't look back.

* * *

It had been only seconds since Chris vanished, and everyone was still staring confusedly at the spot where he had been, wondering what the heck _that_ had all been about. 'Well I suppose one of us should go after him, before he does himself some damage,' Knuckles grunted irritably.

'Uh… I don't think he'll like that.' Amy points out. 'He seems really annoyed.'

'Oh what's he gonna do? Chaos Control me?' Knuckles muttered irritably before starting to walk in the direction Chris had gone when he stormed off. 'If that boy thinks he can charge around like an idiot, ignoring what's the matter while the rest of us are trying to deal with an _apocalypse, _then he's got another thing coming. He needs to learn some responsibility.' Sonic didn't argue as Knuckles walked away, still shaking his head in confusion. Man. Chris hadn't snapped at him like that since…

…Chris had _never _snapped at him like that.

'Well,' Grandpa said after another moment or two, seeming very calm about the whole thing. 'That was interesting. I was wondering when his mother's genes would start to make themselves apparent. I'm surpised it only took nineteen years.'

'I _told _you guys not to coddle him,' Amy said, knowingly. 'Don't you remember what happened the last time we did that, Sonic? I'll give you a clue; it involved Cosmo and a bunch of artificial chaos emeralds in an alien fortress?'

'Aw c'mon, Amy, you were almost as bad as the rest of us,' Sonic muttered, rubbing his ear thoughtfully, still feeling very confused that _Chris _of all people had seen fit to snap like that. A few seconds later however he was distracted by the familiar sound of an engine drawing up close behind them.

'Hey, Sonic! Yo!'

Sonic blinked for a moment at the figure dressed in red and white running across the plaza towards him. 'Sam?' He turned, breaking into a smile at the familiar face. 'Hey! Man, you're a sight for sore eyes.'

'Sorry buddy, but as much as I'd enjoy a rematch right now, we've got bigger problems, I've been looking everywhere for you!' Sam exclaimed. He was jabbing a finger over his shoulder in the direction he had come. 'I just got word from one of the Relief Effort Agents down at the Lakeside. We've got... company.'

'If it's Eggman you're talking about then you're a little late, Sam,' Amy said peevishly, still annoyed by Chris's outburst. 'We just saw him.'

'Ha! I wish. Eggman I can cope with,' Sam scowled. 'No, the problem I'm talking about is about fifty feet bigger than him, and it's rising out of the boating lake like the Monster from the Deep.'

'Another monster?' Amy groaned. 'Oh, Sam, tell me you're kidding!'

'I repeat my earlier "I wish",' Sam said. 'Sonic, we need you guys down there right now. People are in danger, and I don't know how long we can hold it off.'

'But… what do we do?_' _Tails asked uncertainly. 'The Chaos Emeralds…'

'What about them?' Sam asked, frowning. 'You told me you still had at least one.'

'Uh, well, we _do_,' Tails shuffled uncomfortably. 'But it's sort of… well, it's a little out of use right now.'

'Out of use?' Sam frowned. 'How can a Chaos Emerald be _out of use? _It's a Chaos Emerald_, _I wasn't aware they had Best Before dates.'

'Well, Sonic and Shadow _somehow _managed to smash it into a thousand pieces while destroying the last monster to rampage through the city,' Grandpa said, already racing to the car and pulling out his laptop. After all, the last time a Monster showed up, it had been just before the Wallscapes started moving and coming down again. That meant he might get a short window of time with the laptop's connectivity restored and he clearly wanted to make the most of it. Man, Sonic thought to himself. Way for someone prioritising.

'Oh, wonderful,' Sam groaned impatiently. 'So let me get this straight: we've got another huge monster attacking the city, whole crowds of refugees are in danger, we have practically no military forces to back us up, and the only thing we have which has shown _any_ power against these creatures is _broken_?'

'That's about it,' Tails says, uneasily. 'And if we don't have any Chaos Emeralds, and the last of those freaks took— Uh…' He trails off, looking around as they all suddenly realise that nothing is left of Sonic except for a light gust of wind, signifying his exit. 'Hey, where'd he go?'

'Oh, oh,' Amy groaned. 'Why does he always do this? Sonic get back here! You know we can't take that thing on without… _**Sonic**_!'

* * *

Knuckles found Chris on the roof of the university building, standing leaning against the stone wall at the edge of the building, gazing out across a city peppered with light and green honeycomb.

'Unacceptable.' He said, when Chris didn't notice his approach. He jumped slightly.

'I… how did you get up here without me noticing—?'

Knuckles didn't dignify that comment with a response. He knew a distraction technique when he saw it. 'You know, people expect that kind of outburst from Amy.' He said. 'Or Me. Heck, even Sonic has his moments. But _Chris Thorndyke_ throwing a fit, just because he thinks he's being coddled by a bunch of people who are genuinely worried about his safety because –get this– he has a _lump of emerald stuck where his heart should be and we have no idea what kind of an effect it might have_?' He waited a moment to see what Chris had to say for himself. When he said nothing, Knuckles sighed, and jumped up to stand besides him on the wall. _Damn it_. He was no good at this heart-to-heart stuff. 'You know, I'm starting to wonder if I've been sucked into some alternate universe where everything is backwards.' Knuckles said. 'Amy is taking her time and thinking things through and you're throwing fits. Thank the ancestors for Cream being her usual self, she's the only thing providing any sense of coherency right now…'

'I'm sorry, are we talking about the same Chris Thorndyke here?' Chis pointed out, smiling a little in spite of his obviously dire mood. Humans, Knuckles thought, were some of the most fickle creatures in the universe.

'Hmm,' Knuckles mocked deep thought. 'You mean the one who once shut down a temporal portal, putting the whole world at risk just because he didn't want to let go of somebody? Yeah, now that you mention it, what was I thinking? This is _very_ like you.'

Chris flinched. 'That's not fair.'

'Neither is what _you're_ doing. Our friends are concerned about you. And we happen to have bigger thing to worry about right now, kid.'

Chris winced, though Knuckles could see he was getting to him. 'I'm not a _child_; they don't have to treat me like one.'

'Oh? Then maybe you should stop _behaving _that way. I don't know for sure, but maybe that will get you the response you want?' Knuckles answered, calmly.

The glib comment seemed to get the response he wanted. Chris froze up, the annoyance on his face fading slowly into embarrassed realisation. He sighed, stepping away from the wall and turning to sit down beside it. Knuckles hopped down to sit besides him. The cold wind was making his ears hurt. 'When did you learn to be so sarcastic, Knuckles?'

Knuckles smirked. Damn, absence really _did_ make the heart grow fonder. It seemed that in their time in separate worlds, the whole of their strange little family had forgotten the things that bothered them most about each other. 'The same place _you _did. Planet Earth. I have to say, though, I don't much care for the colour on you. It doesn't suit you.'

'…I'm sorry.'

'Don't apologise to me,' Knuckles shrugged. 'I'm not the one you chewed a hole in. I mean, promise you'll never tell him this? But I think it's Sonic who's owed the apology here. Crazy, I know. But true.'

There was silence for a couple of moment as they both stared out across the green honeycomb of the city, lights splitting the sky here and there, like sharp knives.

'We understand, Chris,' Knuckles said. Chris grunted noncomittally. 'Well... Okay, so maybe we _don't_ exactly. None of us can say this has ever happened to us, after all. They're not going to stop worrying no matter how you behave. But you denying it's happening isn't going to get us any answers either, kid. You're scared. I get that. But come on, it's not like you haven't faced scarier things beore in your life. I seem to recall you bypassing Tails security system on the Typhoon so you could follow Cosmo into the Metarex base, even though you knew it was idiocy.'

'I got myself _knocked out_ then, Knuckles. Anyway this is different from the Metarex, from Eggman...'

'You're right. This isn't some enemy you can fight or a puzzle you can solve, it's something inside of you,' Knuckles finished Chris's thought for him. 'Something you can't control. I bet this is the same feeling that Sonic gets around water. He can't run in water, he can't swim, he's completely out of control and he hates that. It freaks him out. Maybe the only reason I understand is because I know what it feels like, too. '

Chris raised an eyebrow. 'You, Knuckles? Being _scared_?'

'You're at it with the sarcasm again,' Knuckles smirked, giving him a light thump on the shoulder. Well, _light _by Knuckles standards, Chris actually winced a little bit. 'Sure I get scared. I get scared all the time. Usually due to stuff involving my duty as a Guardian, and the protection of the Master Emerald. And I repeat my errlier warning that you're not to tell Sonic any of this. He's unbearable enough as it is.'

'You… you had an idea from the start didn't you?' Chris asked after a moment. 'That there was something wrong with me.'

'Not exactly. I knew that _something_ was up, though I wasn't entirely sure what it was. And don't call it wrong,' Knuckles says, bluntly.

'Why not? You did.'

_Ouch_. Well okay, Knuckles admitted to himself, so that was a fair strike. 'Well that was mostly my gut instinct talking, and there's more to life than what my gut thinks. It usually only talks when it's hungry anyway.' He smirked, feeling somewhat cheered by Chris's answering snigger. So the kid hadn't forgotten how to smile, then. That was good to know. 'Anyhow, I'm biased. I was raised to protect the Master Emerald from all threats. I think the last few days have shown that I'm woefully inadequate at that job…'

'What? Of course you're not, Knuckles, you do a…' Chris trails off. 'A… really _decent_ job of protecting the Master Emerald. I mean considering how volatile it is, and how dangerous, and how hard it is to keep track of… Which is a little weird given that it's a huge lump of rock, I mean how does anyone manage to regularly _lose_ a—'

'Ac-hem,' Knuckles coughed. 'Yeah, _thanks_. _I_ can do without sympathy too, you know. Anyway, I was brought up to be a Guardian. Taught that it was my only duty in life. My only calling. I was to give my life for the Master Emerald, if that was what it took. And then this,' Knuckles shrugged as if "this" basically said it all. 'Nothing like what's happening to you has ever occured before, Chris. At least not to my knowledge. Maybe there's something about it in the tablets back home, but we're not in a position to go check. I'm out of control, just like you are, and that… that just freaks me out.' He trails off, huffing grumpily. Damned humans and their need for long, deep talks about their feelings. He wasn't _used _to this. It made him uncomfortable. 'What's happening here may be bizarre, and frankly beyond the realms of possibility. But _wrong_? What's happening out in the city; those Wallscapes, the monsters… _that's_ what's wrong, kid. One of the people I trust most in the universe having a piece of the thing I'm sworn to protect stuck in their chest?' he shrugs. 'I guess it's not so bad, by comparison.'

There is another silence between them for a couple of moments before Chris lets out a breath he must've been holding for longer than he thought. 'Thanks, Knuckles. I mean it. I guess I am being a brat.'

'Hm. A little,' Knuckles smirked. 'I get that it's difficult, Chris, but… heck, we'll work something out. We always do in the end. Whatever happening to the city and whatever's happening to you may be connected. If we can find the Chaos Emeralds— Uh, Chris, you okay?'

Chris didn't answer. His eyes had gone spookily wide, and he was winching slightly, as if caught by an unexpected pain. It faded as quickly as it had come and suddenly he was throwing himself to his feet and staring over the wall into the city. 'Knuckles, look!' Knuckles followed Chris's line of sight out into the city. There, about two miles away from them, one of the glowing green curtains had started pulsing brighter than the others, bright waves of light passing through it.

'That's… that's happening near the lake,' Chris stammered, stepping back away from the wall. 'Knuckles, something's going on!'

'No really, ya think?' Knuckles muttered, squinting to better see what was happening so far away. The air was filled with a sound that was almost but not quite like the wind. A sound that Knuckles recalled from a couple of days ago. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he knew what it meant. 'I need to get down there!'

'Right,' Chris muttered. Then he was running back to the doorway onto the rooftop. Knuckles was shivering as they headed for the stair.

'Urgh. Damn it, Chris, did you really have to come all the way up here to have your mope? I'm freezing my quills off.'

'It seemed appropriate. People are supposed to brood on top of tall buildings, staring out at the horizon, aren't they?'

'…I'm not even going to respond to that.'

'What? It's dramatic! Why should Sonic get to be the only one who perches on high places?'

* * *

The waves crashed against the beach so hard that they dragged at the dirt, tearing several primus stoves, camping packs, tents, and sandwiches back into the water with them as they receded before charging up the bank a second time… and this time they took more than just wrappers and stoves. They took _people_, several of them being dragged back towards the water by the force of the outbreak.

The crowd was properly panicking now, shrieking and staggering away from the river banks as fast as they could, desperate to avoid the lash of the waves. And yet somehow, amidst all the panic, Jemima could still see people with _video cameras_. For goodness sakes, of all the things to do… The police officers who were present (and who Jemima had not quite managed to reach in time, not that it would have made any different) simply stood there gawking into the chaos, clearly uncertain what to do for a few moments. Eventually they began yelling at the crowds to calm down, and also to move faster, desperate to exert some bit of authority over a situation they clearly had no actual control of.

Jemima threaded her way between the crowds of people racing in the opposite direction, searching desperately for her family. They'd been close to the edge of the lake, she recalled. Right up next to it. She tried to crush down her panic at the thought of her younger brother being sucked into the tidal waves. She was dangerously close to the edge of the water, calling out to her parents, when she felt strong arms thread around her waist and start to pull her backwards. She twisted her head to see the same man she had spoken to a few moments ago dragging her along with him. 'No! Let go of me! My family's out there, please, they're only here because of me!'

'Then they'll be running for safety, along with everybody else, we need to get away from the water, Jem!'

Jemima hissed in frustration, trying to fight back. In her panic she had dropped the bag of snacks she was carrying (which she hadn't even realised was still in her hand until now) and the packages she had scattered were kicked aside as she fought back. 'You don't understand!'

'Yes, I do.' Mister Stewart said, wrapping his arm around her more tightly. Something about the tone of his voice penetrated her panic, hinting that yes, he did indeed understand. 'But you _drowning _won't help any of them. You have to follow the crowds, get as far away from the water as you can. Come on, run!'

Jemima didn't answer. She was trying to grip the muddy earth with her feet even as Franklyn kept dragging her backwards, when she first caught sight of what was _really_ happening in the middle of the lake. The centre of the lagoon was nothing but a throbbing mass of spray and movement; like a storm at sea had erupted in the middle of a boating lake. The centre of the water bubbled outwards, and at the core of it all, rising up from the waves like an extremely ugly chick hatching from an egg, there was the monster.

Jemima grit her teeth to keep from shrieking at the sight of it. She was too young to remember much of the last attack on Station Square, and the monster that had risen from the floods. And anyway there was little to connect this monster with the Chaos Beast that had attacked the city so many years ago once you got past the basics. From this far out, it looked like nothing more than a writing black mass, but a glimpse through her binoculars showed her that the beast was made up of a billion filigree tentacles that thrashed and moved of their own accord. Fibrous limbs in their thousands, covering every inch of its skin. It had no eyes (or if it did then they were hidden by the writing mass of its body like some kind of bizarre, extremely shaggy dog) and its mouth was _huge_, like a sucking leeches only a million times bigger, filled with a thousand jagged brown rock like shapes that Jemima assumed were teeth. When it opened its huge jaws it let out a cry like a whale's song gone terribly wrong.

It seemed _endless_, as if its body reached down into the bowels of the earth. Maybe it did…

'Wh-what is it?' she managed to stammer, clutching Franklyn now to support herself rather than attempt to struggle away. 'It-it's just like the monster from yesterday, the one that attacked in the city, it's… Where did it come from?'

'The green walls,' Franklyn muttered, still gripping Jemima by the waist though by now there was no reason to. She was too frozen by fear to even think about running. 'They must be coming out of them, attacking us _every_ time the walls start moving.'

'Bu-but…' Jemima gasped, fear making her incoherent. She swallowed hard, trying to take deep breaths. She was _not_ a child, damn it. She was _not_ afraid. The waves kept smashing against the banks with every movement the creature made and as she watched, Jemima could see several other peoples where the creature's waving tentacles were extending out of the water. It seemed to cover the entire lake, several more of its huge limbs bursting from various points across the water, reaching out to snatch things from the air. 'Why? I don't understand what they want!'

'It's a trap,' Franklyn hisses in realisation. '_That_'s what those monsters do! They push people towards the places where the next walls are going to fall, _luring_ people in!'

Jemima swallowed, looking around at the steadily retreating, screaming crowds behind her; watching them run for their lives in desperation and panic. 'How do we stop it?' She exclaimed desperately. Unable to think of any way they could possibly combat this creature.

'I don't know,' Franklyn said before dragging her sharply backwards, away from another incoming wave. Jemima clutched his hand tightly as they began to run, staggering over rocks and logs towards the copse of trees at the edge of the lake.

Behind them, the creature continued to grow and writhe, and surely there couldn't be _this_ much water in the lake? Surely the waves would stop sooner or later? But it seemed from here as if they never would. A glance backwards showed that the monster was once again lifting its huge gaping jaws to the sky and screaming, like some _enfant terrible_ calling out for its mother. Its many thousands of limbs had erupted from every inch of the lake's surface. The crowds were still running. There was no way to stop them, Jemima thought desperately. No way to calm them down… If this was a trap then everyone, her family included, was going to run right into it.

Then it felt as if the world was slipping out from beneath her; in reality Jemima had simply lost her footing, falling to her knees hard in the sandy dirt. Franklyn, still holding her hand tightly, was yelling her name and trying to drag her to her feet, but deep down, Jemima could feel that it was already too late. Another of the waves was bearing down upon them.

'Take a deep breath, cover your mouth!' Franklyn yelled, though she barely heard him over the rush of the water. Even in the midst of her terror, Jemima found herself cursing the unfairness of it all. All her life she'd wanted to do something more, to be someone important, to _help_ people… and now she was about to die, aged fourteen, in a tidal wave at her own _boating lake_. She took a deep breath and clasped her hands over her face as Franklyn had instructed, waiting for the weight of the waves to smash down on top of her.

* * *

**Gacks, References, and Other Explanations. **

_ "'Well, either that or "__**Mysterious Theatre Zone 2010**__", the man chuckled."_ –A take on _The Twilight Zone_, a famous American-made television series about strange things and strange worlds, and _Mystery Science Theatre 3000_, a more recent show with slightly similar content. You probably know of them.

_"Oh, then where is the army? Where are GUN, and _**CLIP**_ and the rest of the military?"_ -CLIP (the Covert Local Investigations Program) are a rather… extreme branch of the GUN agency that I created for my other fan fiction-in-progress, "_Blue Hedgehog Psychology_". They're not bad guys, per se, but they are… enthusiastic about their work. Topaz might call them "jerks with authority". This story takes place in the same universe.

_"I seem to recall you bypassing Tails security system on the Typhoon so you could follow Cosmo into the Metarex base, even though you knew it was idiocy."_ -Occurred in the Sonic X episode, "Teasing Time", series three/season five.


	7. Six: Damage

**The latest chapter is somewhat of a long one with lots of location changes but I think it works. Standard disclaimers apply. **

**Hey, on that note, who else is loving the new option to select which specific "version" of a franchise your story fits into?  
**

* * *

Damage (Out Of) Control. 

**The Prower-Thorndyke Inter-World Encyclopaedic Reference (A Comprehensive Work in Progress). **

**Neorex, (**_**noun**_**)**: The creatures known to us as _**Neorex**_ first appeared on Earth on the 18th of August this year. At the time of writing, there have been two manifestations of such monsters in Station Square, and we anticipate many more. Whether or not they're appearing elsewhere on the planet is unknown, but seems likely. They go wherever the Wallscapes go.

Little is currently known about these peculiar creatures, except that they are apparently created from the transmutated energy of everything devoured by the **Wallscapes**. They can take the form of whatever natural material happens to be in the area. For example, we recently encountered a Neorex made out of the oil from a downed tanker. The Neorex appear to serve as distractions, creating chaos and panic in preparation for a **Shift**: that is, the moment when the Wallscapes vanish from their current locations, and move somewhere else to begin draining that area of energy too, leaving behind nothing but a white residue. Rather like hunters herding gazelle into a trap. Except that this time, _we're_ the prey.

Isn't that a cheery thought to start your day with?

_- (Update Number 29, by Charles Thorndyke.)_

**AFTERNOTE (By M. Prower)** Right now, I'm convinced that the Wallscapes, the Neorex, and the Master Emerald are under the control of an incredibly powerful outside force, though I have no idea who or what that force could be. Eggman has been dismissed as a possible candidate, he's not nearly powerful enough to pull off _this_ kind of trick, (and if he were, he'd probably be boasting about it by now). Chaos itself seems an equally unlikely mastermind, even though this whole problem started when the Master Emerald went 'rotten on us. As for the Metarex… I'm not going to dismiss them at this point, but it seems unlikely. They were all destroyed at the centre of the galaxy months ago. I was there. I watched Cosmo _die_ to—

This is getting very unprofessional isn't it? Sorry. Back to the science.

Still, I can't completely dismiss the Metarex. They were incredibly adept at manipulating various substances and energies: after all, they were members of a plant-based species who converted themselves into a metal form. And what better way to trick your enemies than by convincing them they've already destroyed you?

* * *

It was a surprise for Franklyn, how quickly the water rose.

The waves the monster had created raced outwards from the centre of the lake, like massive tides thrown by an angry sea, smashing into the riverbanks and breaking a nearby dock into fragments. As the largest wave fell, he was clinging to the teenage girl he'd been trying to rescue, making a futile attempt to shield her from the several thousand tonnes of liquid _mass_ that was thundering down over their heads, fully expecting to be drowned anyway.

This was, frankly, not the way he'd ever expected to go when he applied for GUN as a teenager. He'd figured it would be some kind of shootout, like the ones you saw on television. Or a dramatic fall in slow motion from a moving train. Or saving a very attractive young singer from a wannabe assassin.

…Now that Franklyn thought about it, his teenaged self had watched way too many movies.

So here he was, standing and waiting for the onslaught, wishing he had remembered to feed the cat and water the plants and all those other silly things people are supposed to think of just before they die (not that he even _owned_ a cat). The water began to fall, slashing his face, soaking his hair, pushing at his closed mouth.

Then, suddenly, Franklyn was dragged off his feet and _pulled_, away from the spray, away from the crashing wave, and away from the very strong possibility of drowning. Before Franklyn knew it, he was being deposited on the soft, reasonably dry ground beneath one of the large trees surrounding the lake. People were still running past him in a panic, screaming and yelling. The girl, Jemima, was still clinging to his arms, gasping for breath and choking on the water she'd already swallowed.

And there, standing in front of them, obsessively squeezing water out of his fur was a very large, very spiky, very, very _blue_ hedgehog.

Franklyn began to speak, realised there was water in his mouth, spat it out, and tried again. 'S-Sonic?'

'Urgh. Gross! Why can't the monster show up somewhere nice and dry?' The soggy hedgehog grumbled, turning around to face them. He blinked for a moment before grinning. 'Hey, Mister Stewart! Long-time no see! How're the kids?'

'You…' Franklyn paused, rubbing his eyes and spitting for good measure. Oh, good grief, you'd better be the real Sonic. I swear, if I'm having some kind of terror induced hallucination—'

'Uh. Sure. It's me alright. Don'tcha think you should steer clear of the water? I mean I dunno if you noticed…' He jabbed a finger over his shoulder towards the writhing mass of tentacles in the centre of the lake. 'But there's a monster in the lake.'

'Yes, _thank_ you, we _had_ acknowledged that,' Franklyn muttered sarcastically, coughing. 'Can you tell us what the _heck_ is going on? What are those things?'

'Good question, I'll let ya know when I have an answer or when Tails does, anyway. He's the guy who works out all of the brainy stuff. I just kick the bad guy's butt… uh… if they actually _have_ one to kick, that is.'

Sonic folded his arms, staring out at the beast thrashing in the middle of the waves and slowly but surely beginning to drag itself towards the banks on its many millions of limbs. It was possibly the grossest thing Franklyn had ever encountered in his life. More gruesome than the monstrous Chaos beast that had thundered through Station Square years earlier. More gruesome than the last monster had been as it rampaged through the city. And it easily dwarfed Sonic by about a thousand metres.

'It's coming closer!' Jemima squeaked, staggering to her feet. 'I-I think it's going to try and get out of the lake!'

'Which is exactly why we should be running in the opposite direction,' Franklyn snapped. 'Come on, Jem, we need to get _out_ of here!'

'But…' the girl hesitated 'What about my parents?'

'They're probably running for safety along with everyone else. Or more likely, they're looking for _you_,' Franklyn answered. 'We have to go, Jemima, right now! Sonic, do you think you can handle this freak?'

Sonic grinned. 'Can I handle it? Can Tails fly the X Tornado backwards?'

'I'm going to assume that's a yes,' Franklyn smirked. The girl looked torn, glimpsing back and forth between Franklyn, the monster in the lake, and their blue rescuer. Her eyes eventually fixed on Sonic in confusion. 'I… you're really _him_ aren't you? Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog I remember seeing you on television, when I was just a kid.'

Sonic gave her a winning grin. 'Yup, that's me. And Mr Stewart's right. You need to get out of here at sonic speed while I take care of Loch Nasty out there.'

'But…' the girl hesitated, clearly wondering how on earth such a small creature could stand a prayer against a being like that. Franklyn didn't blame her. She had probably never seen Sonic in action before.

'Trust me, kid. This is Sonic we're talking about. All he needs is a quick boost from the Chaos Emeralds and that thing out there is calamari, right?'

'Uh, yeah about that…' Sonic started to speak, and then trailed off. 'Um. I mean, _sure_. The Chaos Emeralds. _Right_. A-anyway, I've seen the end of the universe, kid. I helped to _stop_ it. Trust me; you don't have to worry about a thing. This guy's already yesterday's news.'

'Or _**would**_ be if he had a newspaper right now,' Franklyn gave a wry smirk.

The girl must have believed him, because she was now pulling Franklyn aside and away through the trees. Franklyn didn't even have time to utter a thanks before they were gone, trying to ignore the distant rush of water in their ears.

And then Sonic was turning back to face the lake, trying not to look as nervous as he felt. Just another alien monster, right? He could handle another monster. The creature was raising its massive jaws to the sky and wailing that violent, angry whale-like song. It wasn't as if he'd never dealt with anything like this before. It was just… there was _water_. Lots of it.

Sonic swallowed, eyes still fixed on the middle of the lake. No Master Emerald, no Chaos Emeralds, no X-Tornado, and the bad guy was sitting smack bang in the middle of a huge expanse of _water_. 'Oh well… here goes nothing.'

* * *

By the time Grandpa pulled into the parking bay at the boating lake, they were surrounded by people, crying out and yelling as they raced by, dragging small children and various possessions with them. The walls scattered around the town were glistening and shivering in an all-too-familiar way, and Grandpa knew exactly what was coming next. He glimpsed at the laptop open on the seat beside him, watching as the satellites oh so briefly connected to the wireless system. It was happening just like last time, Chuck thought. When the walls had started to move, for just a few minutes, they had regained use of the internet. And all other wireless systems.

That was when they saw the creature up-close for the first time.

'Well.' Amy said after a few moments of stunned silence. '_That's_ disgusting.'

'Hey!'

Grandpa looked up at Sam's voice. His nephew in law was running towards them as fast as he could. He'd clearly gotten here well in advance of them. 'What took you guys so long? It's getting crazy out here!'

'I'll say. What on earth _is_ that thing?' Grandpa muttered, scrambling around in his pocket for a pair of compact binoculars. As soon as he got a good look at the creature, however, he wished he hadn't bothered. Out there in the centre of the lake, 'Looks like one of Lindsey's Chinese noodle recipes gone horribly wrong. And her recipes are bad enough when she gets them _right_.'

'Never mind that, where's _Sonic_?' Amy asked, sharply. 'Is he already out there?'

'I'm not sure, I… wait… no…' Grandpa paused as a blur of blur flittered across the path of his binoculars… then back again. It was difficult to keep track of the small, rapidly moving figure at the edge of the lake, but there was no doubting who it was. 'Yeah, he's down there alright.'

'Oh boy,' Amy groaned. Clearly even her usually unshakable faith in their supersonic friend seemed limited right now. Grandpa couldn't blame her. 'Not that I doubt him or anything, but I hope he knows what he's doing.'

'Well he _is_ Sonic, since when was it in his repertoire to plan ahead?' Sam sighed.

Grandpa nodded in agreement, leaning back in his seat feeling uncertain what to do. There was no way they'd be of any help to Sonic from here. Even with the brief access to satellite power he'd gained when the walls started changing, there wasn't much that he could do. Destruction lay in every possible direction. They already _knew_ where the monster was; using the satellites to work out where it was going _next_ wasn't really going to be of much help.

'Prof, if this monster follows the same pattern as the last one, then all it's trying to do is create as much panic and chaos as possible.' Sam murmured. 'The less organised people are the more of them it's likely to capture when the Walls come down again.'

'Then we have to stop it as quickly as possible and start trying to get people organized,' Amy snapped, as a young couple raced past them in a panic, clutching each other's hand. They barely seemed to acknowledge the fact that a bright pink hedgehog was standing in the parking lot. There was a whirring screeching sound as people leapt into cars all around them and started to drive away. But this only led to more chaos, with the cars becoming gridlocked as each one struggled to escape.

Damn it, didn't _anybody_ in this city know how to handle a crisis by now?

Grandpa raised the binoculars to his eyes again, glimpsing through. The blue dot was still darting back and forth around the lake, but it was hard to see whether the monster even realised that Sonic was there. He was nothing. Not even a flea on the great beast's back.

'There's nothing he can do,' Grandpa muttered. 'Sonic _needs_ those Chaos Emeralds.'

* * *

'We need to get a hold of those Chaos Emeralds!' Knuckles snapped as he charged into the sixth floor laboratory with a wheezing Chris close behind him. Helen whirled around, surprised by their entrance. She had been at the window, supporting herself against the frame so that she could stand and look out into the city. From here it was impossible for her to know what was happening down by the lake unless she checked it out on the security cameras, but what was happening to the walls as they shifted and mutated in the sky over their heads was plain to see. The whole air looked like marble, all green and white and constantly shifting.

'Knuckles? What're you doing here?' Helen exclaimed, before realising who was following him. 'Chris you're supposed to be at home!'

'Um, yeah, y'see—' Chris started to defend himself, but Knuckles interrupted.

'Not now, Helen, we've got more important things to deal with than Thorndyke.'

'I know,' Helen said, swallowing her nerves. 'The Walls are moving again, aren't they?'

'Not only that,' Knuckles said. 'But they've brought another of those monsters with them. It's taking over the Station Square's boating lake even as we speak, the whole area around is flooding.'

Helen bit back a groan of frustration. 'You're kidding me. Not _another_ flood.'

'Unfortunately.' Chris said. 'And if Sonic's out there then he's going to need help. He could barely handle the last creature, and that was with Shadow _and_ the Chaos Emeralds TO help. This time we don't have either of those.'

'Helen we have to find some way of locating the Chaos Emeralds,' Chris said, urgently. 'I… they're the only hope Sonic has. And the rest of the town, too. We could see the lake from on top of the building. That thing is _huge_.'

'…What were you two even _doing_ on _top_ of the building,' Helen quirked an eyebrow suspiciously. 'When you were told time and again _not to leave the mansion_?'

Chris sighed. 'Look, there's no way Sonic can take that monster on all by himself. He _needs_ the Chaos Emeralds and for all we know they could be scattered halfway around the planet again by now!'

As if suddenly realising how urgent they both were, Helen turned and wheeled over to the nearest computer. The University had its own personal power supply, but until just a few minutes ago, their computers had been cut off from the satellite network. There had been no way to communicate with the outside world. Now, however…

'I… I might have a way. Look at this,' she turned to her computer, to the thousands of signals and control bars flashing up and down the screen. 'It's happening just like last time.' Helen said excitedly. 'Whenever the Wallscapes start moving, there's a brief period of time in between, where signals from the outside world are getting through. See? We're being bombarded with built up electronic messages and signals as everything struggles to get through at the same time.'

'But that just means that the whole communication system will overload and shut down because it can't handle all those signals at once anyway,' Chris exclaimed. 'Sure we'll have satellite power for a few moments but not long…'

'Maybe that's all I'll _need_,' Helen says eyes flicking back and forth across the bank of computers, eyes flashing as she scanned her computer screen, typing rapidly in codes even Chris couldn't begin to understand. 'All I need is just a few minutes of power, and a sample of the type of energy I'm looking for. Like the chaos emerald we broke yesterday!' she whirled to face Knuckles.

'But that's back at the Thorndyke's,' Knuckles pointed out. 'There's no way we'll be able to get to it in time! And even if it were_ here, _need I remind you that it's broken?'

'You're right. Hm…' Helen paused for a moment, deep in thought. A strange reservoir of pre-chaos calm was running through her, focussing her mind and refusing to let her think about the chaos breaking out outside. Then inspiration struck. She looked at Knuckles. 'You know, maybe we don't ne_e_d an actual Chaos Emerald.'

'What do you mean?' Chris asked, as Helen moved to a nearby box and started pulling out wires and sensors.

Knuckles, for his part, looked confused. 'Yes, what _do_ you mean?'

'I mean that we have a perfect source of Chaos Signature standing right in front of us.' Helen replied. 'All we have to do is hook it up.'

Knuckles' eyes narrowed. 'Helen, you're not seriously thinking about using _Chris_. We have no idea what that could do to him! Besides he's got an energy signature for the _Master _Emerald, not—'

'I wasn't talking about Chris, Knuckles.' Helen interrupted, turning back to face them with a broad smile. 'You're a Guardian, right? Which means that you've got enough residual Chaos Energy in your veins to knock out a 'Botnik. _If_ you know what to do with it.' She held a bundle or wires aloft victoriously, giving Knuckles a smirk. 'I just have to hook you up to a few of my computers. Now stand perfectly still…'

* * *

'Tails, look at this!' Cream piped, distracting tails from the maps that he had been pawing over thoughtfully. When he looked up, Cream was staring at the Chaos Emerald within its plastic container, her hands pressed against the glass. Ella joined her a few moments later. 'I think it's getting better!'

'I think you're right, dear,' Ella said happily. 'Why I'd never have guessed those things could repair themselves. If only the one up in the sky right now would pull the same trick, hm?'

'I'm… sure it would, if it wasn't being manipulated, Ella. It always has before.' Tails smiled faintly. So far he had pins marking out the position of the latest Wallscapes, the last known position of Sonic, the already devoured areas, the police station, the refugee centres, the fire station, the Speed team's launch bay, the airport, the school and a bunch of other places he's fairly sure aren't really important. Cream had been making herself useful by drawing tiny pictures of her friends' faces on paper and sticking them to pins. '_So we'll know where everyone is_,' she had smiled at Tails proudly when she showed him what she'd done.

Sometimes it was pretty amazing how Cream could still act like a little girl.

'You know, times like this I always find it's best to keep myself occupied,' Ella said, brushing her trademark feather duster over a set of nearby shelves. 'A little spring cleaning never hurt anyone.'

'Uh, Ella, I don't think—'

'That cleaning up will do any good whatsoever?' Ella finished Tails thought for him. 'You'd be surprised, Tails. I find the Professor thinks much better when he's in a nice, tidy environment, no matter what he might claim.' She placed down her feather duster, smiling slightly. 'I don't pretend to understand everything that goes on in that head of yours, dear, but give an old lady some credit, hm?' Ella rubbed the patch of fur atop his head as she sat herself down on one of the rotating chairs. 'All this business is mainly to do with the Master Emerald, that thing your friend Knuckles is so obsessed with. Correct?'

'Right.' Tails muttered, turning to join Cream at the Emerald's protective case. The Chaos Emerald, which had previously seemed like little more than compressed shards of glass was now almost whole again with barely a few cracks and holes to show of its damage.

'It won't be much longer now, will it?' Cream asked, hopefully. 'The Emerald is nearly fixed.'

'Yeah, Cream. It is,' Tails smiled faintly, crushing down the anxiety that followed this statement. _And then what?_ He thought to himself. _Even with all of the Emeralds, Sonic and Shadow could barely hold the last monster at bay. If there's another attack…' _ Tails sighed, labelled these thoughts as unproductive, and stuffed them into a box in the back of his mind. Maybe Ella had a point. Except that instead of tidying the room, maybe he needed to organize his thoughts a little.

Topaz interrupted whatever thoughts he might have had next when she enters the basement, no longer dressed in her summer clothes, but wearing her Gun uniform, shirt buttoned up, boots heavy on her feet. 'Okay, you three. I'm off.'

'Oh, you're leaving?' Cream looks up, sadly.

'Just for a while,' Topaz said, straightening her badge. 'I need to report to headquarters, and then I was going to see about helping the emergency services out. I'd like to thank you for your hospitality, but there's really no need for you to keep feeding me and putting a roof over my head.'

'Oh don't be silly, dear, you know you're always welcome here,' Ella says, having resumed her rather nervous cleaning. 'But are you sure it's safe out there?'

'Thanks, Ella. And don't worry. No less safe for me than anyone else, I figure. There's chaos in the streets, and the cameras are picking up goodness only knows what down by the lake,' Topaz frowned. 'I need to get out there and help my colleagues.'

There was, Tails thought, only so much you could do while sitting in a basement staring at maps and waiting for Emeralds to grow, and right now Tails had to feel as if he were doing something more than that. Making up his mind, he hopped down from his chair. 'Hang on Topaz, I'm coming with you.'

Ella looked at him. 'But dear, the X Tornado isn't repaired yet, is it?'

'So, I'll go with Topaz.' Tails shrugged, hurrying to gather his equipment. 'I'm sure I'm a lot more use to you out there. I need to go find Sonic, and all the others. And besides, Cream has taking care of the maps all under control, don'tcha Cream?'

'Yes, sir!' Cream piped, affecting the salute she occasionally sued to use on board the Blue Typhoon, back in their own world. Tails smiled faintly.

Topaz sighed. 'Well alright, but you'll have to come with me to GUN headquarters first, after then… I guess we'll see what happens. You'll probably want to go find Sonic and the others. I'll be staying with GUN until I get some orders. Ella, is that okay?'

Ella shrugged. 'Well it's not as if I can stop you dear, but you be sure to call us if anything happe—oh… that's right, we have no phones, do we? I'd forgotten,' Ella sighed irritably. 'Well you find _some_ way to send a message to me, anyway. And you all are to be back here within five hours, understood?'

'Yes Ella, Topaz and Tails said together. They really needed to find some way to communicate with each other without the telephone networks; Tails thought as he grabbed a nearby tool case and headed off up the stairs after Topaz, passing the living room and kitchen, full of curious yipping Chao who watched them as they wen, some of them waving happily. _Crazy little guys_, Tails thought good naturedly. _At least they've all calmed down since they got here… a house full of crazy, nervous Chao sure isn't my idea of a good time._

They found Tanaka waiting for them at the doorstep. It was strange how _normal_ he looked, Tails thought, standing there in the driveway underneath a pale green sky. He smiled when he saw them, standing to attention in his usual manner, and reaching out a hand for Topaz's arm, as if they were simply going out for a country drive. 'Requesting permission to assist you, madam?'

Topaz hesitated. 'Ed, you don't have to come with us.'

'Neither does Tails, yet still he follows,' Tanaka gave Tails a smile that was almost a smirk. 'Far be it for any of us not to assist our families when they're in trouble.'

Topaz sighed, clipping her gun to her waist and stepping out towards her car. 'Of course. I know, Ed. Your duty is to protect your family'.

'And that is exactly what I am doing,' Ed said, opening the car door for them both. Tails couldn't help but shake his head at the weird normality of it all. The world was ending, and Tanaka was _still_ being a gentleman.

'It's just that Ella and Cream and… and all those thousands of Chao we have right now need you here.' Topaz protested as she got into the car, surprised to see Ed opening the door on the other side to join her. 'And Chris, Amy and professor Thorndyke have Sonic and Knuckles with them. They'll be alright…'

'I was not referring to Masters Chris and Professor Thorndyke,' Ed said, calmly, doing up his seatbelt.

Tails can't help but grin when Topaz's face turns bright red. 'Oh. Thank you… Well then. Let's um… let's get on with saving the world. I guess. But I have no idea how I'm gonna explain to my boss why the station has suddenly acquired a butler.'

'I am sure you will think of something.'

* * *

**REC remaining: 00:24 minutes. **_**Bleep bleep bleep. **_

'_Are you kidding me? Just a half hour left of a _brand new_ battery? Man this camera is really _old_.' _

'_Danny? Are you down here?'_

'_Just a second, Francis, I've almost got it! Okay, um… is this thing on? Testing, testing, one two three.' _

'_Danny what are you doing in your basement? You're supposed to be helping me!' _

'_Oh, sorry. I'm keeping a record for events. I found my dad's old digital camera down here. Thought we could use it. Hold on, I'm coming back up…' _

'_Well _hurry_. We're supposed to be joining the volunteer squad at the end of the street and… Wow, that's a _really_ old video camera.' _

'_Yeah I know, I think they'd only just started putting video recorders _in_ these things when this came out. So, okay, um… It's the twenty first of August here. We're standing on the corner of…Well; it _used_ to be North Garrison Street, two and a half miles away from the centre of Station Square. Now it looks more like the site of a mass evacuation. Which, if I'm being honest, it might well be for real by the end of the week. To your… right? Yeah, your right, you can see the road heading towards the shopping mall and the play park. The University's somewhere off in that direction too. Annnnd to the left is the road leading out of Station Square, the one which passes by the Boating Lake and the River.'_

'_Danny what _are_ you playing at?'_

'_Oh! And this here is Francis Breslin. She and I have just signed up to help out with the relief efforts. We're going to be helping some of the people who've been made homeless by the recent catastrophe. We'll probably be handing our blankets, or delivering messages since we can't get the internet or the telephone network working, or something. It's not exactly what I pictured myself ever _doing_ in a national crisis, but—' _

'_Why are you talking to yourself?' _

'_I'm _not_, obviously. I'm making a recording. You know, so that future generations will know who we were, when this is all over.' _

'_On that really ugly old camera?'_

'_Hey, in times of trouble you work with what you've got, Fran.' _

'_Hm. Fair enough. Anyway, you're exaggerating; my street doesn't look that weird. Here, carry these blankets.'_

'_Oof! No I'm not. Your street is filled with people who don't actually live here. Um, for the purpose of the tape, at this point we believe that a good quarter of the citizens in Station square have been forced out of their homes by the Wallscapes. We were lucky; we're in one of the areas the Walls haven't touched yet. Other people, as you can see from these images, weren't so lucky. I'm not sure what they're even planning to do… everyone's just sitting around. Francis, do we even know where everyone yet?'_

'_No idea. Come on, we're heading for the end of Outpost Avenue. As soon as we catch up with the other volunteers we'll hopefully hear more. Have you heard anything from Chris or Helen?' _

'_Not since this morning. Last I checked they were dealing with the couple of thousand Chao that had invaded their living room. What's up with those guys, anyway? They should've contacted us by now.' _

'_Yeah well, they're probably busy. You know, what with the apocalypse and everything.' _

'_Ah… oh, yeah, almost forget. You know after a while you kinda get used to the great big walls. Hey hold on, give me _

'_Dann-yyy come on, we're in a _hurry_ here. If you don't speed up then the party will leave without us.' _

'_Okay, okay, I'm coming. Sheesh. You know this film could become really important to future generations.'_

_Yeah? Well I'm more worried about what's gonna happen to our _current_ generations. Put that thing down—'_

_**Bleep click. **_

Francis snapped, pulling the camera down from Danny's face and flicking the off switch. 'You'll waste the battery. I'm not even sure how much power we have for the whole city.'

'Well the power stations don't seem to have been affected.' Danny answered, tucking the blankets she'd thrown at him more firmly under his arm and sticking the camera in his pocket. 'It's just the wireless internet, the radio waves and stuff like that… Basically, anything that has to travel through the sky to get to us. We're okay so long as we don't need to use the radios.'

'Yeah, which we _do_,' Francis sighed, walking faster. 'O don't even wanna think about what's happening in the rest of the world right now, but it'd be nice to know if they're all having the same problem we are.' The crowds of people filling her street were blocking the paths, standing around in people's gardens, milling about in cars on the road. Everyone had this nervous, shell-shocked look about them. Like… well, like people who had just lost their homes. It wasn't the first year Station square had seen destruction on a huge scale in the last decade, but somehow it never seemed to get any easier. Danny swallowed his nerves, trying not to think about the Thorndyke's and the Prescott and any other parents who had gotten caught up in all of this. At least his family were all safe.

'So, how're your brothers, Fran?'

'Oh, they're fine. They still think this is all a big adventure,' Francis rolled her eyes in fond annoyance. 'I think I told them way too many stories about Sonic as a kid. They're all going on and on about how he's going to rescue us from the monsters. Or about how Tails is gonna… fly out here in some amazing machine and blast these walls to pieces.'

'Well… isn't that what we're all thinking?' Danny suggested.

Francis paused, and then chuckled. 'Heh. Yeah, I guess it is. You know what people here are like. Did you see how everyone reacted the other day? When they realised Sonic was back? When that boy Miles came out of the wall…'

'Yeah,' Danny remembered. A whole town is pinning their hopes on an oversized blue hedgehog with a serious case of ADHD. Sometimes, Danny thinks, his life is weird enough to be a movie all on its own. 'And I think most people still believe Eggman has something to do with this. I'm not so sure. This seems to be way beyond him.'

'Yeah, normally he just settles for smashing stuff up and scaring people, or—'

Francis trailed off and stopped walking, so unexpectedly that Danny found himself walking right into her back. 'Oof! Hey, Fran, what's—'

'Did you hear that?'

'Hear what?' Danny looked around uncertainly. 'I don't hear anything.'

'Then stop yapping and _listen_!' Francis snapped, the sharpness of her voice demanding silence. Danny trailed off, listening closely. At first all he could hear was the whispering, muttering sounds coming from the crowds of people in the streets. And then he heard something else. Something beyond the streets and people. Something so far out in the distance, and so muffled by the noises of the crowd, that it was almost inaudible. A cold chill of ice curled its way around Danny's spine…

It sounded like a whale's song gone wrong.

* * *

He really wished he'd thought to bring some of those neat gadget shoes Chris had made for him. The ones with the little jet packs that allowed him to run on water. Still Sonic was pretty good at improvising. He circled the lake; keeping up the speed just enough that the creature couldn't get a good look at him. If it even _had_ eyes. Now that Sonic was up close, he wasn't sure.

There were people who had been caught in the last wave struggling out of the water at the sides of the lake and running for their lives as Sonic passed, most of them staggering in the direction of the trees, hoping for some meagre protection. But as soon as he saw the creature's fibrous limbs lunge out and tear a patch of foliage into ribbons, Sonic knew that wasn't going to work.

This one was bigger than the last. All he could see from closer up was a whirling writhing mass of tentacles, like some kind of hideous monochrome pasta dish, and all he could hear was the sound rumbling up from deep within its body. Like something slashing through wet leaves, its thousands of filament-like tentacles lashed out into the corpse of woodland suggesting half the lake tearing trees from the ground, and slashed the air with a sound slapping against pavement.

All in all, it was a pretty gross spectacle.

'_Jeeze. When they were handing out faces, this guy was at the back of the line!' _

First thing's first: attracting its attention. It was so huge that it barely seemed to realise Sonic was there, much less a valid threat. As he watched, it lowered its jaws to the water, lapping up huge amounts of dirty green silt with a tongue less mouth.

_Double_ gross. The less said about the way it smelled, the better.

Sonic gagged. 'Bleugh! And I thought the LAST one was creepy? Hey! Nasty! What is this, a parade of the ugliest freaks on the planet?'

No response. (Did it even have ears?) Maybe it still didn't realise he was here. Sonic hissed, skipping from tree to tree to avoid the lashing filaments. Then he reached out and, lightning fast, he _grabbed_, snatching as tentacle out of the air and pulling as hard as he could. It was like gripping cold dough made slippery with oil.

It wasn't much, but it was enough to attract the creature's attention. Like tugging on a wolf's tail. For a few moments the waves subsided as it stilled, its huge body twisting in the water. A pair of jaws the size of a large house turned in Sonic's direction and then, just in time, Sonic let go. The filament was dragged out of his grip and he tumbled to the bank, rolling over and over until he regained his footing and jumped, just in time to avoid the mass of tentacles slamming into the ground where he had been only moments earlier. Then again. And _again_. There wasn't any time for him to gather himself between one attack and the next. Each of the creature's limbs compensated for the last, striking a thousand places at once. The water thrashed and writhed with the impact. Huge chunks of dirt were ripped out of the ground; the water raged around him but never quite touched.

_Okay Sonic, think fast! What've you got that you can use against this guy? _

Not much seemed to be the only answer his brain could turn up. It was bigger, stronger and frankly, scarier, but it wasn't as fast as he was. Nothing ever could be. Even _without_ the Chaos Emeralds.

'Okay then… looks like we'll have to do this old school style,' Sonic thought, tensing as a meshwork of those billions of tentacles started hurtling once more in his direction.

Sonic waited, tensed, jumped, and _grabbed_.

* * *

By the time Grandpa and Amy had made it to the water's edge, almost all of the other civilians in the area had vanished into the trees. All except for one, that was, who was now racing back to the river bank, joining them at the edge where the waves had lapped upwards. His clothes were soaked and his hair plastered against his face, and Amy stared at him for a moment, frowning until her memory caught up with her.

'Wait… Mister Stewart?'

'Miss Rose, Professor Thorndyke,' Franklyn said as he wiped water off his spectacle lenses and gazed out towards the creature. There were fewer waves here now, since most of the water was being forced upwards against the opposite bank, where Sonic and the monster were engaged in a kind of rapid-fire, lethal game of tag. 'I should've known you'd be around.'

'I could say the same for you,' Grandpa muttered, eyes still fixed on the battle waging in the middle of the lake. Though really, calling it a "battle" seemed a little inaccurate. It was more like a game of jumping jacks. The blue blur that was sonic leaping and darting across the huge beast's frame, as it lashed out at him with a million filaments, as if it were trying to swat away a fly. 'What is it about you Guardian Unit Operatives always hanging around wherever there's trouble?'

To his credit, Franklyn managed to look rather unaffected by this statement. 'I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, professor.'

Chuck snorted. 'Of _course_ you don't. Just like you don't know anything about Project Shadow? Or the fate of Space Colony Ark? Or the fact that your teacher's licence is about as real as my front teeth? Don't look so surprised, Franklyn. After all_ somebody_ had to be keeping an eye on my grandson, back in the day. Stands to reason that it would be somebody inconspicuous and familiar… Like a substitute teacher, perhaps? Besides which,' he glimpsed at Franklyn, smiling. 'Topaz isn't very good at keeping secrets. Not from her own family anyway.'

'She told you,' Franklyn said, still even-voiced. 'That's private information. 'Miss Stone could get in a lot of trouble.'

'She _could_,' Chuck admitted flatly. 'But it's not as if _you're_ going to tell anyone, now is it?'

Franklyn frowned for a moment, then a small smirk quirked over his lips. 'No, I guess I'm not. So… would one of you like to tell me what's going on? _Why_ exactly is our town's renowned hero out there fighting the revenge of Tuesday night's spaghetti?'

'Mainly? Damage control.' Chuck said. 'There's no hope of stopping people panicking. Any minute now those Walls will start moving again. And then we'll have a lot worse to deal with than this.'

'Great, thanks for reminding me that it's going to get _worse_,' Amy groaned, hammer still clutched tightly in her hands as she returned her attention to the battle in the lake. 'What's going _on_ out there? I can barely see thanks to all those stupid tentacles!'

'I was watching when the first walls came down,' Franklyn went on, speaking deceptively calmly for somebody observing his town being devoured from the inside out. 'We've been keeping a close eye on proceedings, but our police forces have been a little preoccupied with trying to keep track of several thousand homeless, terrified citizens. And if there's…' Franklyn trailed off as he watched the battle in the lake continue, raising binoculars to his eyes. Amidst the waves Sonic was darting rapidly from surface to surface, twisting in between the trees, a mere blue amongst the foliage as the creature chased him winding it's filaments amongst the trees, lashing out with its huge teeth.

Only when Sonic darted backwards several metres did the monster realise its mistake. Its many limbs were ensnared in the mess of trees surrounding the lake, twisted up in the branches. Franklyn gawked. 'Uh. Wait, did he just—'

'Cause the monster from Planet Pasta to get all tangled up in the branches of a bunch of Monkey Puzzle Trees?' Amy finished, smirking. 'Yep, I'd say he did.'

'Oh. Wow. That's new.'

'Clever, yes, but I don't think that's going to hold it for very long,' Grandpa muttered urgently. 'That creature's power is spectacular.'

'What about the Chaos Emeralds?' Franklyn asked. 'Last I checked you were the ones who had them.'

'That was five years ago and now we don't,' Grandpa muttered. 'We lost them in the last battle.'

'I-I'm sorry, _what_?'

'I said he doesn't_ have_ the Chaos Emeralds anymore.' Amy sighed. 'We… kind of lost them again.'

Franklyn was, by this point, staring at them in horror. 'Are you telling me that you've once again managed to _lose_ one of the most powerful weapons that have ever existed on our planet?'

'Yep, that's what the guy said,' Amy swallowed. 'Well, okay so that's not entirely true. We have _one_… or rather, the remains of one. It's back at the mansion in several hundred pieces.'

'Oh. Wonderful,' Franklyn exclaimed. 'Just great! How do you expect to take that thing out if you can't even give it a good dose of chaos control?'

'We don't Mister Stewart. Like I said, this is mostly damage control. Sonic's just buying us time to—'

Grandpa's voice trailed off, as out in the water the creature let out another air-ripping shriek, rising upwards and literally tearing its tentacles out of the copse of trees. It brought a huge chunk of the earth up with it, uprooting trees and dislodging boulders, ripping a huge swathe out of the earth as it broke away from its tangled prison.

For a second, the blur of blue that was Sonic vanished into the falling earth and debris. Then the Creature lunged backwards, tentacles waving madly in the air. With Sonic clutched tightly in its grip.

'Sonic!' Amy was up and running around the edge of the lake before anybody could stop her, hammer raised high. 'Hang on, Sonic, I'm coming to help!'

Grandpa knew his voice was going to fall on deaf ears, but he yelled after her anyway. 'Amy wait, you shouldn't go out there! We need to get away from the… Amy!'

* * *

In the movies, Helen thought, this was usually the part where they started playing the dramatic music. Something loud and catchy, to speed along the in reality rather boring, frustrating job of the scientists trying to save the world by typing just the right codes into a computer that always looked so much more high tech and brightly coloured than computers ever did in real life.

Real life didn't offer that luxury. Though right now she rather wished it did. A chorus of music and drums would've been far preferable to her right now than the beeping sounds of her computer and the grumbling of an irritable echidna.

'Helen, are you sure this'll work?' Chris swallowed, turning away from the window and racing back to where Helen was still jabbing plastic sensors into a rather irritated Knuckles, and admonishing him whenever he moved.

'Well he doesn't. Not active power anyway. But you've seen him call on the Master Emerald's power before, right? We know he's capable of connecting with chaos… we don't need much.'

'Now hold on a minute that doesn't mean— Ouch! Helen cut it out!' Knuckles grunted as Helen jabbed another sensor onto his nose. 'I know you have to work fast here, but you _could_ be a little gentler.'

'Oh don't be silly, Knuckles, I'm not even breaking skin,' Helen said, adding another electrode for good measure. 'And I'm working as fast as I can. These sensors are connected to a program designed to locate and absorb chaos energy. If we can provide it with something to trace, namely the residual Chaos Signature in _your_ body, then we can use the program to track down any other bursts of Chaos energy that may be in the area: like the Chaos Emeralds. Just… think of it like a virtual dog tracking a virtual scent,' she said, clearly hoping to break down all that techno geek-speak into a language Knuckles could understand.

'You created all this?' Knuckles asked, looking surprised.

'Actually, no, Professor Thorndyke did. Chris modified it for use with the portal _he_ made to take him into your world. I'm just doing a few last minute patchwork jobs. It's… well it's not actually designed to _work_ this way, but we're kind of desperate, right?'

'Hey, it works for Sonic,' Chris answered, doing a rather good job of pretending to be in control of the situation as he began firing up the machines that would activate the building's radio transmitter. 'Of… course Sonic can _think_ about a million times faster than we can.'

'Yeah well, with his attention span you wouldn't think so,' Knuckles grunted as Helen jabbed him again. 'Ow! Helen, how many of those things do I _need_?'

'Okay, the radio transmitter is online,' Chris turned away from his own computer. 'Better make this quick, Helen. I can already hear it.'

Helen nodded and kept working, not wanting to pause and hear it for herself, because the sound of yet another abomination tearing through into their world was something she couldn't stand to hear again. The creatures that had attacked her home destroyed their city, taken her parents… 'Come on, Chris, _focus_. I think this is a somewhat _bigger_ problem than a robot replacing our homeroom teacher, I need you with me here.'

'Where are they coming from?' Knuckles muttered distractedly as Helen attached another sensor to his quill. 'Those Monsters _must_ be coming from the same place as the Wallscapes, but where _is_ that?'

'I don't know, Knuckles,' Helen sighed, tapping her fingers impatiently. 'And right now? I just want to get it to go _back_ to wherever it came from.'

Chris was running over to the portal at the back of the room by now, tearing out wires and reattaching them in an urgent, slapdash attempt at forming new connections which it had never actually been designed to process. The portal wasn't designed to act as a scanner but in this case it was going to have to serve as one. She kept watching as her computer began to slowly form connections, shoving aside various unimportant bits of information and messages and signals that were coming in, in order to make room for the signal she was sending _out_. _Come on satellite three, we need to go _faster_, or we're never going to make it_!

As if answering her thoughts, a basic, monochrome outline of Station Square began to take shape on the screen; the image overlaid with an ascending ring of blue, as the radio wave carrier atop the university building began to transmit Helen's message. 'What exactly is Sonic dealing with here? How big is the monster this time?'

'I don't know, it was barely visible from here, and the lake isn't _that_ close by…' Chris did a few quick mental sums. 'I'd say it was about the size of this building. Maybe bigger.'

Helen frowned. '_That_ much? But… that doesn't make any sense. The last monster was only half the size of that and that one had the power of six chaos emeralds behind it.'

'Yeah but think of all the energy it must've ingested the last time the Walls came down,' Knuckles muttered, jabbing irritably at one of the electrodes. 'There are gaping holes all over about ten per cent of the city. This thing is stealing energy from the planet... devouring it.'

Chris gritted his teeth, not looking up from his computer, praying urgently for some kind of sign that what they were doing was working. The LOADING, STAND BY message continued to flash irritatingly on the screen. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears. 'But Knuckles, you know that energy is a _force_, not a substance, right? How can anything _steal_ energy? That's not possible!'

Knuckles grunted. 'Tell that to the Metarex, Chris. Don't you remember what happened out there? They started draining energy from the whole _galaxy_, along with everyone in it.'

'Yeah, but...' Chris trailed off. Any scientific explanation he might have had for what happened in Sonic's world was clearly being drowned out by the face that he'd been the only person on the entire ship who needed a spacesuit outside of the Typhoon. 'Surely that was different, right? I mean that happened in _your_ world... it works by different rules to ours.'

'Hm. Right now your very _existence_ seems to be a testament to that.' Knuckles said, raising an eyebrow. Chris hesitated and turned to look at Knuckles, seeming embarrassed and annoyed.

'I guess that's just how it works for these creatures,' Helen said, deciding that whatever the two of them were thinking, it was neither her business nor her concern right now. They had more important things to worry about. 'Technically energy _is_ a building material. That's how the world _works_, right? Our bodies convert static or stored energy into kinetic energy. We need energy to move, to think, to grow… These monsters are doing the exact same thing they're just doing it… faster.'

'Too fast,' Knuckles huffed, deciding that whatever they were talking about wasn't important.

'Well whatever it is, they're making short work of Station Square.' Chris muttered. 'Got it! Program's at one hundred, Helen, now!'

Helen nodded. 'Good, I'm activating the localised scanning radar now, we'll have to make this quick we only have a few more seconds of power left. Keep an eye on the screens, Chris; we need to watch for _any_ signs of the Chaos Emeralds.' _Better hope they're close_, she thought to herself, already knowing deep down how much of a crazy last ditch hope this was. If the Chaos Emeralds were too far away for her scanners to reach, or if they just couldn't get to them in time, then they'd have to hope Sonic could manage on his own, okay sure, he was Sonic but up against a monster living in the middle of a lake, Helen wasn't so sure she fancied his chances. There was a lot less blind faith in Station Square, since the walls came down.

She swallowed, fingers hovering over the keyboard ready to input the necessary command. 'Sit tight, Knuckles. This is probably going to tingle a little bit.'

'I can take it, but just so you know, I have no idea what either of you are talking ab—' Whatever Knuckles was about to say was cut off by what felt like a jolt of electricity right down his spine.


	8. Seven: Close

**Yes, it's me. Yes, I'm terribly slow with this, I apologise. These days, I don't believe in blaming muses for the inability to write or anything, but real life kept getting in the way here. So sorry. Hopefully I haven't forgotten too much of what I was planning...**

* * *

Close Calls.

'Knuckles? You okay?'

Knuckles blinked hard to clear the stars that were gathering behind his eyes. His fur was tingling with the aftershocks of energy. What the heck had Helen just shot him with?

'Urgh. She said it'd _tingle_ a bit, not that it'd feel like someone put me through a blender. What the heck was _that_ all about?'

'Sorry, not my fault,' Chris was smiling awkwardly while helping to pull one of the sensors away from Knuckles forehead. 'Helen just piggy backed your chaos powers for a minute.'

'She... what now?' Knuckles stared at Helen in amazement. Helen didn't look away from the screen she was focussed upon. Piggy backed? What did pigs have to do with any of this?

'I was making blueprints,' she muttered distractedly, still typing away. 'In order for us to track the energy patterns of Chaos Emeralds in the past, we've needed another Chaos Emerald to compare it to. But since we don't have another one available, I needed something _else_. I used the sensory equipment we have here to read your brainwave patterns. I figured that being the destined guardian of the Master Emerald you'd give off a similar kind of energy pattern to the chaos emeralds.'

Knuckles blinked at her. 'Oh-kay. And since when did you have _that_ kind of technology?'

'Since I built a portal that allows people to travel between worlds,' Chris said, dryly. 'You guys left some interesting stuff behind, you know. And it's all in here,' he tapped the side of his forehead.

'And now I think... Yes! Chris, we did it, we've got one!' Helen exclaimed. She was grinning triumphantly, the screen of her computer flashing in iridescent patterns. Knuckles stared at the monitor, which showed a map of Station Square. He could see the University building and the lake highlighted on the screen. And there, near to the outskirts of the city, a radiating outward signal was flashing madly on the screen.

'Wow, it actually worked,' he muttered, surprised in spite of himself.

Helen t'sked quietly as the signal from the satellites died. Their brief window of access to the outside world dying with it, as the Walls began to descend again. According to Chris there'd been a big enough window for Helen to perform a complete sensor sweep of the city (or something scientific like that, Knuckles thought). Now all they had to do was find the Chaos Emerald within it. 'And just in time, too,' she murmured. 'The window's closing. The Walls are going to start falling but... no; I don't think there's one falling _above_ us... or near the lake. We should be safe here.' Knuckles let out a breath, realising he had forgotten the threat the walls posed to them should they be trapped beneath them. This of course, set off yet more disconcerting thoughts. What if a wall came down over the university building and they lost all of this technology to the Wallscapes? What would they have to fight back with then?

'_Huh. Come on Knuckles, since when were you overly dependent on this technological garbage?_' he told himself sternly, hopping off the examination table and heading over to where Chris and Helen were now crowding the computer monitor showing the map of Station Square. Chris was pointing excitedly at a bright flashing signal in the bottom, right hand corner of the map.

'Is that—'Chris started to say.

'A Chaos Emerald!' Knuckles interrupted, gawking. 'Are you serious? It was there the _whole_ _damn_ time?'

'It's just a few miles away!' Helen quickly pulled a PDA out of the computer console and moved backwards across the room. As she span, she grabbed Chris's arm in excitement, pulling him with her. 'In the parking lot of the _Happy Days _Children's Play Centre. If we can get to it in time... oh no.' Her voice trailed off.

A sensation of dread struck Knuckles in the gut. 'Helen,' he growled warily 'Don't say it.'

'The... parking lot is directly located under one of the Wallscapes,' Helen swallowed.

'I told you _not_ to say it!'

'But what will that mean? Chris frowned. 'If a Chaos Emerald vanishes inside the Wallscape... will it be destroyed or will whatever took them in the first place just take it back again?'

'I don't know and I don't want to find out.' Helen said. 'We've got barely a few minutes to get there before — Hey! Knuckles, wait!'

The call came too late. By the time Helen uttered his name Knuckles had already done, the window behind them thrust open before he dove through the opening. Chris ran to the window frame in time to see Knuckles plunging down the wall outside, using his large claws for traction against the concrete. His descent was heralded by a series of loud thudding sounds as the pressure of his grip shattered the concrete.

'I think he has an aversion to doors;' Chris commented.

Helen sighed. 'We'd better catch him up. He doesn't even have the map! I'll drive!'

'Aww!' Chris groaned.

'Oh come on, Chris, how's it gonna look if there's a twelve year old driving a car down the street? And you're not supposed to be driving anyway; you can't even each the pedals! Anyway,' Helen said, turning towards the door and glimpsing back over her shoulder. 'You're a _terrible_ driver at the best of times.'

'I keep telling you, the one-way sign incident wasn't my fault!'

* * *

Things had been going pretty well until he landed in the water.

He's avoided several oncoming attacks and dodged a couple of heavy blows when he lost his footing, feet skidding against the creature's slippery surface and sending him tumbling down towards the water. It was like hitting concrete, forcing the air out of his lungs and the water inwards. The water was heavy, murky and tasted of dirt. Unable to see or tell which way was up, Sonic felt a brief moment of panic before something thin and tight grabbed a hold of his leg, and hoisted him backwards through the water.

The next thing he knew the water was gone, and he was being brought upwards towards the creature's face, gripped tightly in its tendrils. It held Sonic there firmly, staring at him... almost _inspecting_ him as he gasped for air and spat.

'_**Brother...'**_

Sonic winced, blinking and trying to ignore the fact that he was _this_ close to having all of the air squeezed out of his lungs. The creatures seemed to be deliberately keeping its hold on him lax enough that he could still breathe, but firm enough for him, theoretically, not to wriggle away. He could feel its voice more than he could hear it, booming in the back of his skull and echoing, as if in a large, empty room.

Which said absolutely nothing about there being a cavernous expanse inside of his head, no matter what Knuckles might say. Thoughts of the grouchy echidna amused Sonic enough to make him smile even in spite of his situation. 'Hey,' he managed to cough out. 'I'd say thanks for the save but I kinda don't think you dragged me outta there for my benefit, huh?'

'_**You are different.'**_ the voice echoed in his mind again, tickling behind his ears.

Really, _really_ wishing he had some of Chris's turbo boots at hand, Sonic put on the most confident, blustering smile he could while being clutched so tightly in the grip of a monster from between dimensions. 'Yup, sure am. Sonic the Hedgehog. Pleased ta make your acquaintance. Well okay, not _pleased_, I mean you're tearing great chunks out of this place and hurting people I like. And I wanna know _why_ before I kick your ass back between the worlds for ya.'

Of course Sonic knew that all he had to do was turbo spin a little and he could break away no problem, but... he didn't. He held firm, staring into the creature's large, empty eyes, waiting. Sonic tried to _think, _ the way Tails would in a situation like this. For the first time in his life, he found himself more interested in words than in actions. Contrary to popular belief, Sonic _was _capable of rational right now the gears in his mind were turning faster than his feet:_ Why_? Why did it call him that?

'_**Brother of Chaos.'**_ The voice in his mind went on, seemingly ignoring his statement. _**'We are as one. Same source, same core – my brothers speak of you. Why do you fight?'**_

'Yuck!' Sonic winched, remembering. That was exactly what all the other monsters had said so far... talking to him as if he were their _friend_, which was somewhat at odds with the fact that all the while they would be trying to destroy him. 'That guy was your _brother_? Man, you have quite the family tree. Must make for some weird reunions.'

'_**Speak!'**_ the voice boomed again, harsher this time.

'Why should I? I've got no idea what you're talking about! And I'm not exactly used to the bad guys I thrash having conversations with me or calling me their brother. What _are_ you? Where'd you come from?'

'_**From the darkness. From the Between.'**_

'Yeah... I remember someone else saying that to me earlier.' Sonic thought of the last monster which had attacked the city, the one which spoke of the darkness between the worlds. 'And wherever it is, it sounds like you weren't too keen on bein' there.'

'_**The darkness was emptiness; nothing.'**_ The voice said, sounding as if the answer were obvious._** 'Our master could not give us form without substance.' **_

'Your Master?' Sonic repeated, already knowing he wasn't going to get an answer. _It must mean the Empty Darkness between the worlds_, he thought. That sounded just like the blackness he remembered, running through to get from one world to another. So he and Chris _hadn't_ been imagining it. Though how Chris knew what was going on there was anyone's guess. 'And who's _that_ exactly?'

The creature shuddered, as if it were surprised that Sonic didn't already know. This was all so _weird_. And frankly, it was why he always left the talking, wordy, technical stuff to tails. Tails would know what this monster meant...

Still he figured he had better keep it talking. After all, it wasn't every day that you asked the bad guy to tell you the plan and he just came out with it then and there, even partially. That wasn't how these things were supposed to work.

'_**We are as spirits, and now our master gives us strength.' **_the monster went on, it's voice echoing loudly inside of Sonics brain. _**'The Master gives us form, and the Chaos Emeralds give us power.' **_

'Yeah? Well last time I checked chaos wasn't in the habit of handing its power out to crazy monsters!'

'_**Power is power, it works for those who claim it. It has no allegiance, no loyalty... it only Is. Now it is ours. If you are not with us, then you shall die.' **_

'Okay, bored now.' Sonic grit his teeth, struggling against his bonds.

He suddenly realised that breaking away wouldn't be as easy as he'd thought. The tendrils had wrapped tightly around his legs and quills holding him in place as efficiently as concrete. It dragged him closer to its not-quite-face, leering at him with its not-quite-eyes, like the emptiness it had described between the worlds. The one Sonic had seen when he entered the portal that pulled him here.

It was some point in between the heavy painful-sounding thump of Amy's Piko Piko hammer against the wad of tentacles clutching him, and Sonic falling, landing with a heavy thump on the bank of the lake far that Sonic realised what all this meant. He heard the creature thrashing and shrieking wildly above him in pain as he fell, the branches and bushes around the lake breaking his fall like a bunch of scratchy, thorny pillows.

'Sonic!' Amy yelled, running to him through the trees, slipping and sliding in the mud and detritus kicked up by the waves. Amy paid it no heed, her sights set on him. She reached out and helped him stagger to his feet, a fresh hammer already materialising in her grip. Sonic grinned. One of those days, he was going to have to ask her how she did that. 'Hey Amy, nice shot!'

'Thank me later, run now!' Amy yelled. 'We can take this thing on from a safer distance!' Sonic nodded, grabbed her hand, and dragged her away through the trees. The creature thrashed and waved behind them, recovering quickly. A fresh wave began to rise around it as the ground lurched madly beneath their feet, the banks of the lake collapsing under the force of the creature's rage a frustration. Sonic barely flinched at the dramatic scraping creaking noise created by the trees on all sides of them being shattered, splintered and pushed aside like matchsticks.

Amy squealed. 'Sonic!' she yelled, probably without actually knowing _why _she was yelling. It was just the other thing that came to mind.

'C'mon, Amy!' Sonic yelled, hanging on tighter as they dove between the trees. 'We've got to get back to Grandpa right now.'

'They're on the other side of the lake!' Amy yelled, hanging on tightly as they ran. 'Sonic, what were you _thinking_ running into this on your own? You know how bad you are around water!'

'I've been using the _thinking_ parts of my brain for _other_ stuff! You can yell at me later, I know where this thing came from!' Sonic yelled, still pulling her through the scattered trees away from the lake as the waves crashed down around them. 'Even better, I think I know how to beat it!'

'_**Chaos Creature!'**_ The echo of the monster's voice sounded in his ears again._** 'Chaos Creature, you will return! The brother will return to the family! Chaos Creature!' **_

Sonic grit his teeth and ran fast enough that the voice vanished into the wind.

* * *

Tanaka grit his teeth and Tails clung onto his chair as Topaz's car screeched sharply into the parking lot of GUN headquarters, not entirely cleverly disguised as a goods depot on the edge of town. It wasn't an entirely deliberate front, but it served GUN's purposes and had their true purpose well enough. They were covert ops, but it would be a little silly if nobody could find them when they were needed, after all.

The speed limit had clearly been completely forgotten, but there were so few cars on the streets that it hardly mattered. Anybody who wished to leave the city (and surprisingly few people had) had already left hours earlier, heading for the distance where the Wallscapes were scarce.

'Well, here we are,' Topaz sighed, undoing her seat belt. Her voice broke a stillness which had hung over them ever since they left the mansion. Even Tails had been unusually quiet throughout the majority of the journey as they passed the large swathes of refugees and officers trying to calm the rising chaos. Something was stirring people in the streets again, and Topaz wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was.

'Seems kinda quiet out here...' Tails mumbled concernedly, leaning out of the car window.

'Yeah, well it _is_ supposed to be a _covert ops_ base, Tails,' Topaz teased lightly. 'You know. Emphasis on the word _covert?'_

Tails grinned sheepishly. 'Right,' he chuckled. 'So is _that_ why it looks like an industry storage depot?'

'Pretty much. That, and the guys higher up aren't prepared to shell out for a base in a decent location with a nice big shiny logo out front,' Topaz said. Still, she thought as the stepped away from the car; Tails had a point. It did look like a storage depot. There was no movement in the parking area, and barely a few cars parked there. No apparent movement from inside the doors either. The building was eerily still beneath the pale green sky. She exchanged a look with Tanaka as they approached, Tails following behind them with a small laptop tucked under one arm. _Well, _this_ doesn't bode well, does it?_

Her fears were not lessened once they got inside. Topaz tensed as she entered, lights blinking over her head in an empty hallway. The receptionist desk, looking for all the world like something out of a hospital drama complete with a vase of flowers, was empty, and the large reception room with its metal walkways and large glass walls, was empty of any life whatsoever. There were no agents milling about or working at computer terminals, no receptionists, no signs whatsoever of the chaotic panic that _should_ have been taking place. There was no sound coming from the corridors beyond, either. Normally there would be at least a few people about...

She remembered the monsters emerging in the city last night and shuddered, trying not to let her imagination run away with her.

'Be careful,' Tanaka felt the need to warn her, and unnecessary as it was she appreciated the gesture.

'Okay,' Tails mumbled. 'I take back what I said before, Topaz. This is way creepier than any storage place _I've_ ever been in. Where _is_ everyone?'

Topaz didn't answer. She took a few more steps into the building, hand instinctively reaching for her gun. The room was large and echoed emptily around them. She could practically _hear_ Topaz biting the inside of his cheek nervously.

'S-stand and drop your weapons!'

Topaz started in surprise at the unexpected voice, the figure bursting up from behind the desk brandishing a gun meaningfully in her direction. Tanaka started immediately, looking about ready to jump in front of her if need be 9sweet, but she hardy needed heroics). Tails let out a surprised yelp.

'T-this is an are— oh... M-ms. Stone? Is that you?'

Topaz let out a breath of relief as she recognized the man now slowly rising from behind the desk as someone her mental catalogue could place as being _supposed_ to be here. Mortimer Garth was one of the Station's newer recruits. He was an awkward looking youth, barely out of high school with messy red hair and a freckled face over deep set, expressive blue eyes. He was also one of the clumsiest people Topaz had ever known. How he had even made it through recruitment trials was beyond her. Right now those blue eyes were wide and bright with nervousness.

'It's alright, Ed. I know him. Put the gun _down_, Morty.' She reached forwards and pulled the weapon out of the nervous young man's fingers. 'Honestly, what are you _thinking_? Like those monsters out there are even small enough to get through the doors.'

Mortimer shuffled back and forth. Had she not known him since he started working here, Topaz would've taken him for an amateur university student, or an office worker. He certainly didn't look like Secret Agency material. 'S-sorry, Miss Stone. I'm just a little on edge, you know... my first big crisis and all Um...' He paused, looking awkwardly back and forth between them, as if trying to place who Tanaka was. His eyes fell briefly on Tails but skittered away just as quickly, as if uneasy looking at him. Topaz frowned. Curious. 'H-how was your trip?'

'It was great, thanks. Until a giant wall of energy came down and disintegrated half of the hotel,' Topaz said, dryly. 'And about that: where _is_ everyone?'

'Oh they're um...' Morty shuffled again. 'Well if they're not on recon or crowd control duty t-then they're mostly in the bunkers, a-and the briefing rooms. Emergency team building,' Mortimer explained. 'I um... I-I wasn't high enough clearance, but they needed somebody to man the doors, so... I...' He trailed off, uncomfortably.

'And they left no one but yourself on observation duty?' Tanaka sounded doubtful.

'Yeah,' Tails sounded equally bemused. 'And during a citywide crisis? Surely there are enough employees at this organization to provide you with some back up?'

'We do have enough employees, s-sir um... I mean... well. We did.'

Topaz frowned. 'Morty what're you talking about?'

'Well you... you know what's happening, right?' Mortimer asked.

'You mean asides from the walls of imminent destruction falling all over the country and tearing great chunks out of the planet?' Topaz said, dryly.

'Y-you haven't seen?' Mortimer's eyes widened. 'Seriously?'

'Seen what? We only just _got_ here. I came straight from Ed's place, and we didn't exactly stop to tour the area. Mort, what's going on? GUN has over three hundred employees here, you shouldn't have been left out on your own like this.'

Morty looked down at his feet, mumbling slightly, and suddenly his nervousness and tense behaviour started to make more sense as Topaz realised that must surely have happened. Mortimer's already pallid face took on the consistency and shade of alabaster. 'That many?' he asked, voice faint with surprise. 'Wow... that many... I didn't even realise...'

'Morty, how many employees did you think we _have_?' Topaz asked, a sudden nervousness curling in her gut.

'I never counted before today, ma'am but... but now? We only one hundred and two. Including reserves.' He mumbled. 'I... y-you came in the front way ma'am so... so you may not have noticed, but... we don't _have_ a second block anymore. J-just this... big white space where the block used to be.'

Topaz felt the bottom drop out of her stomach, alomgside a feeling of _stupid stupid stupid_, because how could she? How could she have not realised something like this would happen?

'Which staff members were located in that department?' Tanaka asked her, voice soft and almost frustratingly gentle.

'The seniors,' Topaz said, voice as cold as she could make it. 'As well as several groups of active field agents. The heads of Department, the primary leading staff, the Director...'

_And my own unit. _She didn't say. She didn't _need_ to mention that part. Her expression was evidence enough.

* * *

Helen drove past huge gatherings of people, set up around tents and fires, their faces tired and haggard with constant fear. She tried to ignore the fact that even they were better off than others. Then her parents.

'Hey! Helen, be careful!' Chris gasped as she took a corner perhaps a little too sharply and skidded on the grass verge. Helen pulled herself back to the moment, smiling sheepishly. 'That's not like you,' Chris said gently, reassuringly as she righted herself and returned to the road, reducing her speed ever so slightly. It wasn't like the police had time to waste booking people for bad driving.

'S-sorry,' she mumbled. 'There's not really any time for careful!' she winced as they passed the crowds. 'There are so many people...'

Chris nodded understandingly. 'I know. But we're going to help them, okay? I promise.' He said, his eyes older than the rest of his face as he gazed at the PDA in his hand. There seemed to be a glimmer of green dancing in the back of his usually blue eyes. Helen cursed, dismissing this as just her imagination. and a trick of the green light reflected from the sky above. Still was still Chris. The exact same person he'd been before.

_Except that he isn't really_,_ is he?_ A traitorous little voice said inside her head. '_After all... it's so much more awkward for the two of you now, isn't it? Eighteen years old in a twelve year old body... and a defective one, at that. You have no idea what he is now, do you? _

Helen mentally told the little voice to shut up, speeding up again as they passed the refugee gathering and sped farther away from the centre of the city, buildings zipping past them on either side. It was like a ghost town, the streets disturbingly still and empty. And every now and then she glimpsed the grey-green essence of the walls that were falling around the city. Her heart raced when she laid eyes on them, falling from the sky like ominous curtains. How long would they take to reach the ground this time?

'We're almost there, Helen. It's just around this corner. We have to hurry!' Chris yelled, as if reading her mind.

'Right. Chris, you're not getting any kind of... well, any weird feelings from this, are you?' Helen asked edgily, feeling a little silly for asking.

Chris shook his head slightly, seeming uncertain. 'No, not really... I mean the last time, when the monster emerged and the shock waves started, I—'

'Just about passed out on your feet?' Helen finished, trying not to smirk at his furious blush as she took another corner far too widely.

'Okay fine. But nothing happened this time. I think it tingled a little...' he frowned. 'I don't think anything's _going _to happen_.' _

Helen smiled. 'Sorry, you must be really freaked out by all this, and here I am dragging you into trouble again and using you as a Chaos Emerald detector.'

'You didn't drag me into anything.' Chris smiled at her brightly, his expression almost as young as he seemed right now. 'And hey, I might as well make myself useful, right?' Helen bit back another smile. _It'll be okay_, she told herself for the umpteenth time over the last few days. '_Everything will be okay, Helen. You'll find the Emerald. You'll help Sonic. You'll save the world again; everything is going to be okay. _

'...You never did say that you were doing,' she said, partly as a means to distract herself from the pained silence of the drive. 'Up on the roof?'

'What? Oh... thinking. You know, pondering things. That's what sonic does when he's stressed out. Just finds somewhere where he can see a really long way and... Looks around. And thinks.'

'Did it help?' Helen asked, not bothering to query exactly what Chris had needed to think about. The answer seemed fairly obvious.

Chris sighed slightly, biting his bottom lip. 'Not really, I... I was kind of an idiot earlier, Helen...'

The end of his sentence was lost on Helen as she spun the wheel of the car and turned into the parking lot, brakes screeching as she came to a rapid halt.

'You can tell me about your acts of stupidity later,' she said, pushing open the door of the car and raising the step that would allow her to exit. She ignored Chris's attempt to help her down as she always did, rushing out into the car park before stopping... and staring. There were at least thirty parked cars scattered all around them, hiding the pavement from view. Helen began looking frantically around the deserted, half full car park, searching separately for anything to indicate where the Emerald might be a glimmer of light, a shimmer of colour... You could usually feel a Chaos Emerald's presence long before you could see it. The energy they emitted had a tendency to mess with radio and television sensors. But then again, the entire city was drenched in Chaos Energy right now.

She tried not to look up, knowing the Wallscape was far too close. Their descent was easier to see this time. She was at a better angle to watch as the curtains of grey and green energy began to fall from the sky. They hadn't yet touched the tops of the tallest buildings but it couldn't be long until they did. There was a cold, prickling sensation in her arms and along the back of her neck, like a warming.

'Come on, Helen, move it!' a gruff voice snapped besides her a few seconds later, and Helen turned to see Knuckles charging past her, gasping slightly but looking none the worse for the fact that he'd just chased a car across the city. Or maybe they'd been chasing _him_.

'Where is it?' Chris yelled?' 'I don't see anything!'

'Give me a minute, will you?' Knuckles yelled, continually glancing uneasily over their heads at the curtain of grey and green.

'I'm not sure we have a minute!' Chris pointed upwards. 'There's a Wall coming down right on top of us!'

'_Thank _you, Chris, I _noticed_.' Knuckles had begun scampering along the rows of parked cars, peering beneath them, occasionally lifting them up by their bumpers, the heavy weight of them creaking in his grip. Helen paused, in spite of everything. She'd forgotten just how strong Knuckles was. How much damage those claws could do...

Still, they probably weren't a match for the greenish-grey energy field coming down on top of them.

'Here!' Knuckles yelled suddenly, grabbing the bumper of a large truck in one hand and attempting to lift it.

'Knuckles!' Chris groaned, 'Don't do that, those cars _belong_ to people!' he fell to his knees besides the car and half reached, half crawled beneath it.

'Oh come on, Chris, those cars are about to be disintegrated by the oncoming Wallscape anyway, what does it matter if we smash them?' Knuckles snapped.

Chris paused, looking sheepish. Apparently he hadn't thought of that, but it hardly seemed to matter now. A few moments later he lifted his head, and Helen's heart jumped at the sight of the bright red crystal, glowing in Chris's grip.

...And then it jumped again when Chris reacted. The movement was so sudden, and Knuckles was so focussed on the Emerald, that Helen didn't think he noticed, but she did. Chris _flinched_, eyes snapping shut for a fraction of a second, hardly long enough to notice. The tremor lasted for barely a moment, but that was long enough for Chris to drop the emerald briefly. He grabbed it again, hissing frustrated as if it had just slipped out of his fingers by accident, but Helen's gaze narrowed on him all the same.

'Gotcha!' Chris grinned, and the moment was gone as Knuckles reached out to take the Emerald from Chris's hand, leaving Helen wondering of perhaps she had imagined it.

'Yeah, celebrate later, kid, run now!' Knuckles yelled, grabbing Chris's arm and almost dragging him to his feet. Helen joined them quickly, moving as quickly as she could back towards her car. She shivered instinctively as a familiar feeling of static electricity began to prickle along her shoulders...

'Helen, hurry!' Chris yelled, and Helen realised she had hesitated for long enough that Chris grabbed her chair from behind and pushed her the rest of the way to the car, her chairs gears whirring in protest. She fumbled with the door struggling to get in, remembering the feeling of being trapped within one before Chris pulled her free. The cold, empty pain tearing at her bones, fear and dread curdling in her stomach at the thought that her parents might have suffered the same fate.

_No_, she told herself. _Don't think about that, not _now_. _

Their car screeched out of the car park barely ahead of the rushing Wallscape.


End file.
